Cam I Am

I’ve told this story to a few people and thought that I’d share it here..

Back in August, I was working in Abbotsford.  While I don’t remember every call I go to, this is one I’ll never forget.

At this call, I was installing digital phone for a lady that lives in a trailer/mobile home.  After I explained what I needed to do to install it, I went outside to find our connection point for cable (CSE) and telephone demarcation point. 

What luck!  Our CSE was on the front of the trailer!  Usually they are underneath the skirt of the trailer!  I follow the telephone drop and discover that it goes underneath the trailer. 

*SIGH* 

I’m a pretty big guy, so crawling around under a trailer isn’t exactly fun, but it’s part of the job.  I look around for the access panel to get under and discover I can’t find it.  In the customer’s carport, there was a lot of.. well..  crap really.  She mentions something about her daughter recently moving in with her and blah, blah, blah..  

Eventually, we find it.  I pop the panel open and peer in through the opening.  There is a lot of insulation hanging down, but about six feet in, I can see the demarc.  As I get ready to crawl under, I see something on the ground just inside and to the right. 

“What that hell is that!?”, I exclaim.  A slightly closer look and I realize..

It’s the skeleton of some animal!  No flesh or fur, just this skeleton of some animal!  I’m not talking about a mouse or rat, but something much larger.  I say to the customer, “What is that?  It doesn’t look like it’s a cat..  maybe a racoon?”

She replies, “It might be a possum!  We have lots of those around!”  I looked a little closer at it and then noticed something. 

“It has no legs!?  And how would it get under there?”

The customer’s answer is what I found amusing!  She said, “There’s a big hole in the back under the trailer.  You know, come to think of it, I remember a few months ago hearing a big fight under there.   And for the longest time, there were tons of flies out front here for a while too!”

I close the panel and tell her that I had no plans for going under there.  Fortunately, the customer understood why (mainly because I don’t know what’s still under there and alive!)  Then she asked me who she would call to remove and dispose of the legless possum remains.

I smiled and said, “I don’t know..  but certainly not the cable guy!”

I had one of the most creative/bizzare reasons for a customer canceling his order today..

On the work order, the call seemed pretty routine.  Install digital phone for a customer in Vancouver’s downtown eastside.  I get to the building, the manager lets me in and then askes me which suite I was going to.  I tell him which one was getting phone service and he asks me what name was on the work order.  I tell him the woman’s name I had, and he looked at me and said, “That doesn’t sound right at all!  But I do know who that is!”

The manager and I went up to the customers suite, and knock on the door.  Once the customer answered, the manager informed him that I was there to hook up phone.  The customers reply was:

“Oh no.  I didn’t want the service right now.  Please cancel it! One of the hookers that I had over must have ordered it!” 

Dumbfounded, I replied that I’d cancel the order for him and walked out, shaking my head in disbelief.  I’ve never had that as a reason to cancel an order before..

Only on the downtown eastside.. 

After several years of going to this building, I’ve finally decided to take a picture of something that has always confused me about the parking situation. As you will see below, I parked in what is clearly marked as “Visitors Parking”. The confusing part is the sign that is posted there.

Umm.. what?   No Parking In This Area?   How can this be called Visitors Parking if I can’t park there? 

A couple of months ago, I got a Garmin Nuvi 250 GPS unit.  A number of friends and co-workers have this units and rave about them, so I was excited when I got mine.

So far, it’s worked great.  When I was working in an area that I was not very familiar with, it showed me all sorts of routes that I never would have thought of, even when looking at a map. 

Now, there are a couple drawbacks to having the GPS unit.  First, I’ve discovered that the maps aren’t always accurate.  For example, streets have been created in reality, that are not reflected in the maps of the unit.  This is easy to get around.   The other issue is spelling of some street names..

Now, Garmin does warn about this.  In fact, here is exactly  what they say..

One of the goals of Garmin is to provide customers with the most complete and accurate cartography that is available to us at a reasonable cost.  We use a combination of governmental and private data sources, which we identify in product literature and copyright messages displayed to the consumer.  Virtually all data sources contain some inaccurate or incomplete data.  In some countries, complete and accurate map information is either not available or is prohibitively expensive.

I can understand and respect that.  While in Vancouver, it seems to be very accurate, aside from newer streets missing, the spelling of the street names is fine.   While I was in Abbotsford (an area with less population), it was fairly good.  Some streets were misspelled, but overall it was good..

This weekend, my family and I drove up to Penticton for Thanksgiving.  We were heading up Highway 3, when I looked at the Garmin and noticed the next street that we would intersect, a few kilometers ahead. 

I couldn’t believe what I was reading..  I asked my wife to look, and she burst out laughing.  How had we missed this street, in all the years of us driving up and down the highway?

What?!?!?  Asshole River Rd? 

It turns out that the actual street name is Ashnola River Road.   It did provide us with plenty of entertainment for the weekend, with my wife and I occasionally calling each other an ashnola…

For the last three summers, I’ve had an issue..

With seagulls..

I’m sure that you are wondering what the hell my problem is with seagulls, but I freely admit that I now have a fear of seagulls..

Why?

For those of you who don’t know, many buildings in downtown Vancouver have cable service boxes on the roof.  It’s a great place for them!  No one ever goes up there, they are usually easy to find and access and can save time, instead of searching floor after floor for a service box.  The problem is that because no one ever goes up on the roof, seagulls like to build nests on the roof and have their eggs/young up there..

Picture this..

I’m going up to the roof of a building.  I get there and there is a nest, somewhere up there.  As soon as I step out on the roof, those $!#@% birds go nuts!  They go into attack mode!  They will do anything to defend their babies..

And it gets worse. 

They call out to the seagulls perched on top of other buildings!  They all come!  They swoop, swarm and dive.  They get into your face (literally, as one tech found out)…   They are vicious creatures! 

So..  I’ve come up with two plans to do my work..

Plan A - I get the customer to come on the roof with a broom.  Usually, when I tell them this, they roll their eyes and think that I’m a moron.  By the time they get up there and see what I’m talking about, they are much my understanding about why I can’t safely open the service box, find their line, close the box, and fight off seagulls..  (one time, I had nine gulls diving on me and a customer on a roof).

Plan B – Work in Abbotsford.. 

I get mocked at work..  But I believe that more and more techs are finding the same problems.  It seems that in the last few years, they are getting much more defensive about us being up there.  The good news is that while seagulls typically nest from April to October, they seem to be in attack mode from late June to mid-September..

Fucking birds…

Since I have some spare time right now, I was going through some pictures that I took on my cell phone, usually while working. Here are a few things that I found amusing.

I know that it’s a little fuzzy, but I found this on the lid to a big Rubbermaid storage bin. The caption reads “Warning: Suffocation Risk.” Really? You think?

This just looks like a tragic accident. I don’t know who I feel sorry for: the mouse or the wheel!

The slogan at the bottom of the right door reads “Let us remove your shorts!”

That’s all!    

Telus just keeps giving me more and more fodder to talk about!

Back in March, I posted my experience with their billing department trying to bill me for service two months past I had switched over to Shaw Digital Phone.  

Well..  they called me again in the last week..

I answered it, and they confirmed that I was me.  Then they asked me if I was still with their service..

Umm.. shouldn’t they know? 

I said no..  I had switched to Shaw.  The guy on the phone had me confirm two more times that I was no longer with them.   He sounded very puzzled.  Eventually he thanked me for my time and hung up.

At no time during this phone call did I mention that I worked for Shaw and had no intention of switching back.  That being said, at no time did he even ask if I wanted to switch back!  He took no opportunity to see if I was having problems with my new service.  He didn’t try to find even a remote possibility of me wanting to switch back to them..

How can Telus try and retain/capture market share if they don’t ASK the customer if they want it.  One of the very basic fundamentals of marketing is to ask the customer if they would use/try your service/product!

In the end, I stood there with the phone in my hand..  amazed..  or dumbfounded..  I still haven’t decided..

For the past 3-4 days, my wife and I have been on a quest.  Not a noble one, but a quest nonetheless..

We’ve been trying to find a roll of Lifesavers.  Actually, seventy of them.

An easy task you would think.  We spent days going to Safeway, Save-On-Foods and even Superstore.  We tried Zellers…and dollar stores.  We tried 7-11’s..

Nothing..

Well, not exactly nothing..  We found Lifesavers “individually wrapped” in bags, but not in rolls..  And then we tried looking for rolls of Certs, on any other rolled type of candy and wouldn’t be expensive..

Now, I’m sure at this point, you must be asking “Why the hell is he making a big deal to find a roll of Lifesavers?  Why not just take the bag?  And why does he need 70 of them?”

A good question.  My wife is working on a project at work.  To make this story as short as possible, she needs them to make a specific party favour for something at work. 

So, yesterday, we gave up looking.  We found something in a dollar store that was longer than what she wanted, but it would just have to do the job.  So she bought them.  Afterwards, we were talking with each other about how ridculous the whole thing was, especially about how easy it should have been to find a candy that we knew so well while going up.

Today, I went out on a couple errands.  I went to the bank, the grocery store, bought a coffee and then went to the gas station for same propane.  I went into the store to pay when I noticed a roll of Certs..  I thought to myself that it was too bad that we didn’t see them before when lurking on the right..

LIFESAVERS!   ROLLS OF LIFESAVERS!

We never thought about checking gas stations..  Of course, she was on a budget and probably wouldn’t have been able to buy 70 at a reasonable price, but why doesn’t anyone else have them?

I’m a Facebook addict..  I freely admit that..  While I’ve been off work, I’ve spent more time logged into Facebook than I care to admit..

So, while I was on today, and one of my friends, John Giles,  posted an interesting link about Mac users vs. PC users.  At the end of this rant, was an interesting quote.  The author was commenting on the iTunes End User Agreement; specifically about how we are not to use iTunes to create biological or nuclear missiles..

After I laughed my ass off, I decided to check it out..  and sure enough, it does state that!  In fact, here is the actual wording:

“By using the Apple Software, you … agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture, or production of missiles, or nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons.”

There it is..  I’m not allowed to make a nuclear weapon using iTunes..  That’s too bad!  I mean, that “Launch Missile” icon in it is just going to waste!   What are they thinking? I know that they are covering all the bases with endless possibilities, but still..

Something else that is bothering me is this political correctness crap.  “Season’s Greetings” or “Happy Holiday’s”..    We live in Canada, where we predominantly celebrate Christmas..  So say Merry Christmas!  What’s the big deal?  Are we REALLY offending anyone with wishing them a Merry Christmas?   I’m not knocking on their doors like JW’s trying to get them to convert to my beliefs!  (I’ll save my opinion on THAT issue!)..

It’s a holiday..  Yes, there is the celebration of the birth of Jesus, but it’s about being with family..  it’s about giving gifts to those who you love..  it’s generally a happy time of year..  If  you don’t celebrate Christmas, that’s fine!  When someone says Merry Christmas to you, just say thanks and move on!

The political correctness pendulum has swung too far…

A few months ago, I posted a quick story about being called a cable insulter by someone in the elevator..

My brother, Andrew, just sent this to me, so I thought I’d share it with everyone..