Absence makes the Blog grow fonder

First off, I'm loving the golf background. If I had $18200 ($50 average per round, 365 days a year) of expendable yearly income, I would golf every day of my life. It's my addiction.

So I haven't really had that crazy story that I just had to write about....until today! After a nice long lunch break hanging out with Wifey and the Little Man, I jumped back in the Cable-Mobile and started my afternoon. The call started in the usual way: arrive, make sure everything is hooked up outside, head to the door.....ding-dong.

........ding-dong.....knock knock knock knock knock....just in case the doorbell isn't working, and always 5 knocks....my OCD's rule me.

I finally hear the tell-tale sounds of someone inside the house running for the door. Answering the door is a pretty clean-cut guy......twenty-something....glasses...tidy haircut. Then I come in, see he's not wearing a shirt, and has multiple tattoos everywhere. He's got about 3 names, written in fancy script, a couple cliche tattoos like the flower and barb-wire armband, and I later notice he's rocking the Jesus tat on his back.

Aaaaaaanyway...by this point I also realize this guy and his girlfriend (who's sitting on the stairs holding back an ENORMOUS rottweiler) have been indulging, very recently, in a potent agricultural hobby. The guy starts to explain to me that he thought he cancelled the call, because a friend told him that you can't accept collect calls with Shaw phone (completely true, a minor drawback) and he NEEDS to be able to accept collect calls. Before I can even think to ask why, he shares with me the fact that his brother is in jail, and that's the only way he can call out...she tells me they really want to switch because it's better and cheaper and....yadda yadda. He apologizes for wasting my time, I give the standard "No Worries!", and he tells me "maybe in a year or 18 months" he'll switch over. I try not to judge and/or jump to conclusions, but I immediately thought this guy must have been his brother's getaway driver. Or maybe was just another kind of accomplice....hence why he's out and little bro is still trading ass for makeshift booze.

These are my customers.....seriously.....

About a week ago, the rain relented and the sun finally shone...shined...shinned.....? Anyway, Cade finally got to hang out and catch some rays in his sweet camping chair.

Until next time....

Your house is NOT dirty....if it was, I would still have my shoes on!

If I had a dollar for every time I've said the above phrase, I'd be golfing right now instead of relaxing after a picking up a shift at work! Come to think of it, there are quite a few 'go-to' phrases I use while interacting with customers....

Customer: "Good Morning, Mr. Shaw"
Me: "If my name were Mr. Shaw, I would be somewhere warmer right now"

Customer: "Oh, you need to go to the basement?? I'm so sorry about the mess down there"

Me: "Oh, don't worry about that. I haven't even seen it yet, but I can guarantee I've seen worse."

Customer: "I've had it with (Telus/Bell/Rogers), ever since they (insert bad customer experience here)
Me: "Oh really? That's the first time I've heard that today, but it's not even noon yet"

And probably my favorite
Customer: "So with the PVR, if I forget my show was on yesterday, can I still watch it today?"
Me: "No, unfortunately, it's a PVR...not a time machine"

(I can't take all the credit for that last one, it was actually a friend-of-a-friend that dropped that nugget.)

So after hearing about erratic-housecoat-wearing-porno-grampa from last week's entry, I bet you think I come across some really strange people. And the answer, of course, is YES...yes I do. And here is a tribute to some of them:

Mr. Let Me Ask My Wife - No matter how minute the detail, you can bet he's going to pick up the cell phone at least 3 times during my visit. "Honey, do you want the Cable Box on the top, middle or bottom shelf of the TV stand?"

Mr. Wanna Make $50 Guy - Generally found closer to downtown, and in less desirable neighborhoods. Doesn't understand the concept that if I get caught hooking up his cable illegally, I'm gonna have to live on that $50 until I find a new job.

Mr. My Buddy is A Cable Guy - Friends of mine that will tell other friends and co-workers, "Call my buddy, he'll hook you up!" Now, I won't lie; when approached properly I don't mind this guy, as long as it's not assumed that I have nothing better to do than spend 5 hours wiring your friend's house for every single situation that might come up.

Mrs. Micro-Manager - She's probably married to Mr. Let Me Ask My Wife. She will ask you exactly how long you will need to hook everything up, because she has to drop her daughter off at soccer practice and pick little Jimmy up from piano lessons and she has to leave in 47 minutes and waited 8 days to get this appointment in a time slot she didn't really want. The Modem goes on the desk between the pen cup and the Troll collection. Not on the floor, not behind the monitor, thank you very much! And do you have any black cable? I don't like seeing the white behind the shelf.

Mr. Shadow - He doesn't know what you're doing, why you're doing it, or even if he wants you doing it, but dammit, he's going to follow you around every square inch of his house! You stop to do a little work...you can smell what he had for breakfast. Climb under a desk to hook up a computer, and there had better be room for 2! Possibly the most annoying customer.

Mr. & Mrs. Our Appointment Isn't Until 4 - I'm running ahead of schedule at 10am, I was driving past your house and noticed the cars were home. If you have time I will take care of your call right now. But you want me to come back in 6 hours. When I drive by (again) 3 hours later, cars are still there. Arrive at 4pm, cars are gone, no answer at the door. I call you, and you say you just stepped out for a moment, you're around the corner and will be right there.

Mr. Please Arrive After "X" O'Clock - His call is booked from 12-5, but he doesn't get off work until 3. "Please come after 3pm" is written on the work order. If I'm having a bad day, you can be sure I will stop by at 12:15 and door-tag your ass! This monster is created by bad Customer Service reps who took the request in the first place.

Mrs. Techno-Illiterate - A customer actually asked me yesterday: "What's my internet name?" It stunned me for a minute until I realized she was asking about her email address. Before I could respond, she must have saw the confused look on my face and said: "I used to be thesmiths@telus.net". I reply: "Oh. Now you can be thesmiths@shaw.ca, but you have to go online and create an email address for that. She said she would take care of that later. I'm sure she's still searching the keyboard for the 'Any' key. And before you accuse me of age-ism, I think she was about 45 years old. Seniors are a different case. It's not their fault that they grew up talking to other people, and actually leaving the house to socialize, instead of texting and Facebooking.

Wow, I apologize for this turning into a bit of a rant.....guess I need these next few days off more than I thought! The next time you hear from me, I will be another year closer to the Big 3-0. Birthdays used to be cool, now they're a reason to take a day off work and eat cake and have a few glasses of wine. Yeah, you're right...that's still pretty cool!

As always: Cade being the cutest kid on Earth. We took him to Heritage Park last winter, and he slept through everything after the hayride.

Monkey See, Monkey Do!

I'm not gonna lie. Lauren started a blog, I want one too!

So here's the deal: Being a cable guy takes me into some "interesting" homes and situations. Every once in a while something happens that I think the world should know, and that's what MY blog is going to consist of. And don't worry, if you happen to be the person I'm talking about, names will not be provided. I wouldn't want your neighbor to stumble upon my blog someday and say "Hey, I live next to Joe Blow at 123 Any Street....I can't believe he has a telescope aimed at my bathroom window!"

Whenever I come home with one of these doozies, Lauren always says: "You should write a book", but I don't know any publishers, and writing a book seems like a big task for me....so a blog was a good starting point. You're not gonna get my best stories in post #1...that's not how I roll. But maybe I'll whet your appetite with something kind of strange....something that will make you say "Man, he sees some weird stuff!"

PS - Stories will NEVER be embellished for dramatic/humorous/gross-out purposes. These are my stories, and they are 100% true!

This story starts the same way ALL cable guy stories start: "I was at this call the other day, and....". Seriously. You can be at the shop at 7 in the morning, and before 7:12 you will hear this phrase at least a dozen times. Also: "...the other day..." is a time period roughly equivalent to the period of time from the cable guy's first day, up until yesterday. So, without further delay:

I was at this call the other day...It was about 9am on a weekend morning, and I was knocking on the customer's door. As always, the peephole in the door goes black as they look through it to see my very official "SHAW - PEOPLE POWERED" shirt before opening the door. Then a couple latches un-latch, and I get my first glimpse of the customer: an older man, maybe 60 or 70 years old, in his purple bathrobe, glasses, and some crazy just-woke-up hair goin' on. Not unusual attire for a weekend morning, probably sitting at his dining room table, eating breakfast, sipping coffee and reading the newspaper. I introduce myself, confirm he is who he says he is, and confirm what I'm there to do. Today we're hooking up a digital cable box for the customer. Simple, in-and-out call, 15 minutes tops, and that's with a quick demonstration. So I set up the equipment on his account, kneel down behind the TV, hook up everything I need there, come back to the front and as I go to hook up his VCR, I have to move his collection of about 40 VHS tapes.....40 'ADULT ENTERTAINMENT' VHS TAPES. Staying strictly professional, I move them aside and continue to work...all the while feeling his stare coming from the couch. Is he embarrassed? Nope. Did he not think I would have to do something to his TV to hook everything up, and maybe should move his porn collection? Nope. Needless to say, once everything was hooked up, it was the fastest demonstration I have ever done, out the door and didn't look back.

That was very early in my cable guy career, and at the time I remember thinking "Man, this is weird". But it only got worse. Over the next couple years, more and more weirdness continued to happen....people I couldn't even dream existed....stuff that I couldn't possibly make up......stuff that you're gonna have to wait to read!

I'm also told that most bloggers end their posts with something original, something to make their blog unique. So, as I will do with all posts, here's a picture of my Son doing something cute/funny/ironic!