Keith Keller
2015-06-18 20:09:34 UTC
This is slightly OT, but does have a slim connection to Bay Area
networking. Most of the story I got third or fourth hand, so I can't
actually verify most of it, but it's still a good story.
Yesterday, our next door neighbor called PG&E to report a downed wire
which was draped on her car and connected to our house. As far as I can
tell from the aftermath, the bracket holding the line up at the top of
our house had fallen out, so the wire was running right from the pole to
the building, with a lot of slack in the line. After calling she waited
for PG&E to knock on her door.
A short time later, my wife, who was home at the time, got a call from
our neighbor across the street. He told her that PG&E cut our phone
line. According to him, his conversation with the PG&E tech went
something like this.
Neighbor: I think that might be a phone line, not a power line.
PG&E tech: Nobody uses landlines any more. *snip*
This tells me two things: the tech *knew* that the downed line was not a
power line, and therefore shouldn't even have touched it; and that the
tech simply did not care that he was messing with something he shoudn't
have been. The aftermath was that we had about 10" of wire sticking out
of our house, and maybe 15-20' of wire coming down from the box and
electrical taped to the utility pole. This is another indicator that he
knew it wasn't a power line, it'd be completely crazy to tape a live
wire to the pole.
Anyway, after this phone call, my wife went to the neighbor who
originally called PG&E. That neighbor was surprised, because she was
expecting PG&E to ring. So the PG&E tech did not knock on *either*
house's door before cutting this line--he just cut it and left.
W. T. F.
So, we wasted an entire afternoon on the phone with PG&E and Sonic
trying to get a resolution. The calls with PG&E were mostly bitch
sessions, since they shouldn't be messing with phone lines even if they
broke them in the first place. The good news is that everyone we spoke
to at PG&E was horrified at their tech's actions, and claimed that their
policy is not to touch other utilities' equipment. They also said (an
hour after the incident) that the tech was still listed as being on-site
even though he'd been long gone by then. They said we could file a
claim for damages, though I'm skeptical that they'll follow through.
The tech should clearly be fired, but I'm extremely skeptical that he'll
even be disciplined.
All the Sonic reps, and the AT&T tech who came out this morning, were
similarly horrified. The AT&T tech didn't believe me at first, but when
he saw the PG&E tech's handiwork it was clear that someone had done
exactly what we described.
Total downtime was about 24h. The AT&T tech finished up in about 2
hours, pretty good time for having to run a totally new line from the
utility pole to the house. I like to rag on AT&T, but I have to admit
that every time they've come to our house they've been competent and
efficient. The ~36hr appointment window wasn't pleasant but at least he
showed up in the morning; the window was till 8pm tonight, so it could
have been a lot longer. The earliest 4 hour appointment window was
Friday, and I didn't want to wait that long.
--keith
networking. Most of the story I got third or fourth hand, so I can't
actually verify most of it, but it's still a good story.
Yesterday, our next door neighbor called PG&E to report a downed wire
which was draped on her car and connected to our house. As far as I can
tell from the aftermath, the bracket holding the line up at the top of
our house had fallen out, so the wire was running right from the pole to
the building, with a lot of slack in the line. After calling she waited
for PG&E to knock on her door.
A short time later, my wife, who was home at the time, got a call from
our neighbor across the street. He told her that PG&E cut our phone
line. According to him, his conversation with the PG&E tech went
something like this.
Neighbor: I think that might be a phone line, not a power line.
PG&E tech: Nobody uses landlines any more. *snip*
This tells me two things: the tech *knew* that the downed line was not a
power line, and therefore shouldn't even have touched it; and that the
tech simply did not care that he was messing with something he shoudn't
have been. The aftermath was that we had about 10" of wire sticking out
of our house, and maybe 15-20' of wire coming down from the box and
electrical taped to the utility pole. This is another indicator that he
knew it wasn't a power line, it'd be completely crazy to tape a live
wire to the pole.
Anyway, after this phone call, my wife went to the neighbor who
originally called PG&E. That neighbor was surprised, because she was
expecting PG&E to ring. So the PG&E tech did not knock on *either*
house's door before cutting this line--he just cut it and left.
W. T. F.
So, we wasted an entire afternoon on the phone with PG&E and Sonic
trying to get a resolution. The calls with PG&E were mostly bitch
sessions, since they shouldn't be messing with phone lines even if they
broke them in the first place. The good news is that everyone we spoke
to at PG&E was horrified at their tech's actions, and claimed that their
policy is not to touch other utilities' equipment. They also said (an
hour after the incident) that the tech was still listed as being on-site
even though he'd been long gone by then. They said we could file a
claim for damages, though I'm skeptical that they'll follow through.
The tech should clearly be fired, but I'm extremely skeptical that he'll
even be disciplined.
All the Sonic reps, and the AT&T tech who came out this morning, were
similarly horrified. The AT&T tech didn't believe me at first, but when
he saw the PG&E tech's handiwork it was clear that someone had done
exactly what we described.
Total downtime was about 24h. The AT&T tech finished up in about 2
hours, pretty good time for having to run a totally new line from the
utility pole to the house. I like to rag on AT&T, but I have to admit
that every time they've come to our house they've been competent and
efficient. The ~36hr appointment window wasn't pleasant but at least he
showed up in the morning; the window was till 8pm tonight, so it could
have been a lot longer. The earliest 4 hour appointment window was
Friday, and I didn't want to wait that long.
--keith
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