I love variety – one day I’m lumbering around a hissing, steaming,very scary petrochemical plant dressed like Darth Vader. Then I’m roaming around sixty acres of factory in pursuit of a hidden cable, seeming to be drawn into a game which is a cross between tracking wild animals and the 1980’s T.V. Series “Treasure Hunt”. Finally, it’s a compact and tidy house in suburban Stockton on Tees. Why?
As Telecom Green Ltd transformed into local telephone engineers, we decided to sell some of our “spare” engineering time to private customers. We’re now firmly rooted in business-to-business work, but enjoyed the challenge of domestic work so much that we still serve this market.
“I need a socket moving across my lounge” said the lady. “Easy”, I thought. Not so, it seemed. This is the challenge of working in homes – it can be way more fiddly than an office or factory, and the demand to make work look right means particularly careful attention to detail – the customer will be looking at the results for a long time to come…
How can moving a socket within the same room be hard? Well, pay careful attention for a moment. Ready?
The original master socket had been moved to a new location and cables jointed behind a decorative plate. They then had to be severed, old cables removed, routed along a skirting board, up a door frame, along the top and down the other side, taking a 90 degree turn, then a second 90, to route along a second skirting board, and finally through another 90 into a socket. Apart from that, quite easy.
There’s always a “quick, cheap and nasty” solution to these kind of jobs. I wasn’t going to choose it. The cable was not going to be tacked/stapled/clipped, but hidden in small, decorative trunking, complete with bends. Not cheap and far from nasty. It looked good.
The customer, a charming nurse with a resemblance to a missing member of “The Corrs” with a dog called “Hazel”, even left some kind words.
Variety, challenge and happy customers. This beats working for a living.
The Customer Said…