Adventures of a Satellite installer

doc holiday

As we got alot of installers with us from time to time it would be cool to hear some of the more amusing scenarios we had to go through.

About 4 years ago with sierra we were given pdas (xda2)At the time it came with a 2megapixel camera, which was fairly decent for a phone.
In the program to close off a job the customers signature was needed. Now some customers were amazed (rural folk) that they had to sign on a mobile phone. So i started taking the piss a little. After they signed i would make them stand against the wall and then photogragh their faces passport style telling them it was skys new procedure.
I would do this several times until i happy with the picture, then tell customer that sky would soon be issueing them with a sky i.d. card that can be used to obtain certain perks if ever in parts of london.
This kept me and the helper sane for weeks over the busy christmas periods.

Had a sky plus upgrade about the same time.Went to job told customer that i had to change lnb run in new cable, change box.
Done in 20 minutes, got customer, ran pda program through, give to her.
Sign there please i said, So this is it ? She says stareing at the pda in her hand, What says i ? So this is the sky plus box, do i watch all the shows on this i dont think ill be able to get used to this?
No that is what you have to sign for me in reciept of the new box that is beside your tv that you have ordered from sky.
Oh she says embarrassed i thought that this was going to replace the television.
True story.

Of course i must have heard can you not put the dish in the attic a hundred times.

Or when at the time everybody was getting the black glass tv stands and had black dvd players,tvs,etc. People were not happy with a white sky box.
One guy rang me up later that night a begged me to come back and give him black plus box. Thing was that he already had a old white pace standard. I told him to spray it, but use a non-metallic paint just to take the piss.

Beezkneez!

You sound like a real nice guy. Just because someone doesnt understand how sky and pdas etc work you take the piss. Taking customers pictures like that - thats not even funny. If i found out someone did that to someone i knew i would report it - just not cool.

La Haine

Honestly mate, you sound like a phuckin twat.

mikom

You'll be going on until you are fucked down into a cellar and forced to put the lotion in the basket.

St Senan

doc holiday. Not a good first post from you. In your post you mention you are or were with Sierra either employed directly or sub/sub contracter i would like to know. Did you not do the Inhouse training course with Sierra on how to present your self and how to respect and be mannerly towards customers.

Dont get me wrong all us Installers/Aerial riggers have horror or funny stories to tell but no way would any decent guy in the trade take the piss out of a customer like the way you described. SAD SAD SAD

M00lers

Dickhead.

s_gr

Unbelieveable!

St Senan

doc holiday wrote: »

Had a sky plus upgrade about the same time.Went to job told customer that i had to change lnb run in new cable, change box.
Done in 20 minutes, .

.

Typical of a undertrained 2 day crash course sky dish installer.

decskelligs

And they wonder why people hate having to call out idiots like the OP

ISAA

Arsehole,
giving us good installers/riggers a very bad public image.
Should be BANNED :mad:

doc holiday

scaller wrote: »

doc holiday. Not a good first post from you. In your post you mention you are or were with Sierra either employed directly or sub/sub contracter i would like to know. Did you not do the Inhouse training course with Sierra on how to present your self and how to respect and be mannerly towards customers.

Dont get me wrong all us Installers/Aerial riggers have horror or funny stories to tell but no way would any decent guy in the trade take the piss out of a customer like the way you described. SAD SAD SAD

Yeah
In house training,Manual handling,ladder safety,Harness ,Tele co,asbestoes and hazardous detection.
Absurdly i never recieved any customer complaints in many years of working for sierra.

One time i was at a job in carlow, called to the house, most of the windows were boarded up with ply or had no glass, when i went in to the house i could hardly see a thing as the lights were off and little natural light came in. It was a three boxer so went to the living room with the lady. All i could see where eyes and the ground moving. Asked her to switch on a light
when she did the room became alive with dogs and cats, they were scrambling everywhere, most of the cats had only 3 legs and the dogs were all staffordshire bull terriers.There was **** all over the floor,sofa table, everywhere.
Thats grand says i where would you like the other boxes mrs

---

She preceded to lead me upstairs to the bedrooms.
Bedroom one had two mattress one the floor covered with stains and cut to hell, porn dvds and cider cans everywhere.
There was a partition dividing the two bedrooms ,just the old lathe and plaster with enough holes in it that you could play tennis through it.
Went to bedroom two
Smaller room with one mattress in the corner.
On the mattress lay a boy of about 12 sleeping in a large black refuse bag with a greyhound/whippet also in bag.
At least she had the decency to offer me a cup of coffee.

St Senan

doc holiday wrote: »

Yeah
In house training,Manual handling,ladder safety,Harness ,Tele co,asbestoes and hazardous detection.
Absurdly i never recieved any customer complaints in many years of working for sierra.

Did you work directly for Sierra or were you a sub/sub contractor working for some one else thats contracted to Sierra.

All Sierra installers Paid directly by Sierra were given a training course on Presenting themselves Mannerly and respectful to the customer.
I am talking about 10 years ago when John Molloy was in charge of the sky department. It seems things have changed after reading your comments

Nehaxak

Says a lot for Sierra if they let idiots like this work for them. Though it doesn't surprise me either, rotten company and ignorant whining installers to deal with.

Tony

This has got to be a wind up

claytonie

If this is not a wind up its the most bizarre story, why were they getting Sky if they sleeping in refuse bags? :eek:

Tony wrote: »

This has got to be a wind up

doc holiday wrote: »

Yeah

On the mattress lay a boy of about 12 sleeping in a large black refuse bag with a greyhound/whippet also in bag.
At least she had the decency to offer me a cup of coffee.

Rippy

Please do not feed the troll.

danois

as much as i agree this guy/troll is an idiot and should be ignored i do think its a good idea for a thread and i would like to hear some actual real interesting stories not the made up to wind people up kind....

Rippy

danois wrote: »

as much as i agree this guy/troll is an idiot and should be ignored i do think its a good idea for a thread and i would like to hear some actual real interesting stories not the made up to wind people up kind....

If you google 'riggers diary', you'll find the very funny newsgroup ramblings of Bill Wright, something of a guru to this trade.

major bill

as a security installer i had a lot of fun on site myself but we never once took the piss out of the customer like you did with the photos.its intimidating enough for some people moslty women to have strangers working in there house without idiots like you going in:rolleyes:

C McGroarty Ltd

:mad::mad:

doc holiday

claytonie wrote: »

If this is not a wind up its the most bizarre story, why were they getting Sky if they sleeping in refuse bags? :eek:

Bizarre was not the word for it.
I had used a full container of anti-bacterial hand wipes directly after job.
They already had two boxes in at the time and i was on very good money from the subbbie at the time.
The rep that sold it was a friend of mine and i wouldnt leave him down.
I made a phone call to the ispcc reporting what i saw,god knows what the situation is now it was a few years ago.

Tony

Hmmm I heard a similar story by mouth many years ago from a former regular poster on here.

doc holiday wrote: »

Bizarre was not the word for it.
I had used a full container of anti-bacterial hand wipes directly after job.
They already had two boxes in at the time and i was on very good money from the subbbie at the time.
The rep that sold it was a friend of mine and i wouldnt leave him down.
I made a phone call to the ispcc reporting what i saw,god knows what the situation is now it was a few years ago.

doc holiday

Another job comes to mind
It was an id1
Called to house late one evening, on the phone the lady said she would be standing on the roadside waiting for me, i told her it was not necessary as i was familiar with the houses on her road.
As i got close she flagged me down, opened the van door and launched herself in on top of my helper.
Drive quickly now she said!
We went down her driveway "welcome to the madhouse" she exclaimed!
This was going to be interesting i thought.
We pulled up to the house, it was a large expansive bunglow surrounded with overgrown grisiliena hedging and badly damaged garden furniture.
Get in quick before the c##t sees ye she says.
Had to follow her around to the back door and enter the house.
Somewhat calmer she begins to tell us of her prediciment.
Apparently the husband was after leaving her for another women. A girl he met while working in russia.
The husband had partioned the en-suite master bedroom from the from the rest of the house while she was at work one day and had shacked up living quarters in the attic. He then preceded to cut/divert aerial and existing dish cables to his preference.
The customer wanted us to put the dish on the side wall about 6 foot up.
No problem 15 minute install i thought
Got the dish up, cable in, Helper comes out to me.We got a problem he says. The husband had cut the phone line as it come in from a pole and went straight to an eye bolt on the chimney.
He had it working in the attic, oddly he was running a business up there(financial adviser i later found out)
This was before the days off m.i.ing cards with ease, i then rang the dort team and attempted to explain my peril. With the dort team at the time one had to be very careful as they could actually cancel the job as an id1 and rebook it as an inp. Problems here would be that they could talk to the customer and tell them that there would be an extra charge. Customer could lose the head and cancel, still cost me a fortune on my phonebill. After office hours i couldnt do a sdr. so the job would get cancelled and come back in a few days, maybe for someone else.
Rang dort 30 minutes waiting time at quarter to nine. No chance line would go dead as they close at nine.
So obviously had to take box and card home with me and do callback their as the women was under duress and the tv was very important to her. Told her i would be back in the morning and explained the situation.
She went mental, grabbed the sweeping brush and started hammering
the ceiling shouted every curse under the sun at her better half.
Right i says thats our cue.
Came back next morning,plugged in the box, no signal. Went outside cable cut and lnb on the ground. Great! ran new cable and replaced lnb.
Your great lads thanks she said. I only hope i dont have to call you back.
In the next two weeks i was out there 5 times.
In the end i went up the chimney and twisted dish and pulled cables from the masthead amp leaving my card in it.
Two days later got a call from himself, we called it a truce, asked me was i married, i said no, he said i was lucky!

snaps

what on earth is this thread?

azzeretti

Surely you meant to post this here http://boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=382

Kristopherus

There's an awful stench from sour grapes on this thread. Well played, Doc Holliday. Great stuff, even if its only half true

Tony

Only stench here is of BS

Kristopherus wrote: »

There's an awful stench from sour grapes on this thread.

Manc-Red

doc holiday wrote: »

As we got alot of installers with us from time to time it would be cool to hear some of the more amusing scenarios we had to go through.

About 4 years ago with sierra we were given pdas (xda2)At the time it came with a 2megapixel camera, which was fairly decent for a phone.
In the program to close off a job the customers signature was needed. Now some customers were amazed (rural folk) that they had to sign on a mobile phone. So i started taking the piss a little. After they signed i would make them stand against the wall and then photogragh their faces passport style telling them it was skys new procedure.
I would do this several times until i happy with the picture, then tell customer that sky would soon be issueing them with a sky i.d. card that can be used to obtain certain perks if ever in parts of london.
This kept me and the helper sane for weeks over the busy christmas periods.

Had a sky plus upgrade about the same time.Went to job told customer that i had to change lnb run in new cable, change box.
Done in 20 minutes, got customer, ran pda program through, give to her.
Sign there please i said, So this is it ? She says stareing at the pda in her hand, What says i ? So this is the sky plus box, do i watch all the shows on this i dont think ill be able to get used to this?
No that is what you have to sign for me in reciept of the new box that is beside your tv that you have ordered from sky.
Oh she says embarrassed i thought that this was going to replace the television.
True story.

Of course i must have heard can you not put the dish in the attic a hundred times.

Or when at the time everybody was getting the black glass tv stands and had black dvd players,tvs,etc. People were not happy with a white sky box.
One guy rang me up later that night a begged me to come back and give him black plus box. Thing was that he already had a old white pace standard. I told him to spray it, but use a non-metallic paint just to take the piss.

If you think thats funny, your an idiot.

St Senan

Can a mod delete this thread and ban that other half saved clown all he is going to do is come on here with some bull**** story evey second day.

s_gr

Right...Joke over....Close the thread please

paultf

scaller wrote: »

Can a mod delete this thread and ban that other half saved clown all he is going to do is come on here with some bull**** story evey second day.

ditto

ISAA

If one of us real Installers/Riggers, mentioned (Pirate,card copying etc) we would be banner, but this arsehole is still blowing out of his hole,

please BAN him.:mad:

MiCr0

closed