Jbear

Me and Patti and the '80 are coming over. Eddie has decided to go in a different direction. He had never really commited, said it sounded like fun but decided on something else. I guess I jumped the gun saying he was coming 'cause I was hoping so much that he would. Azeus17 has company so if he comes it'll be a last minute type of thing, We are hoping you and Tamy can come...been to long since we seen you guys. If something breaks for you...call me.

john

Gary and John, Thanks for the explaination. I've got the idea now. It's sort of like removing all the branches off a tree trunk - Then there's only one direction to go without those branches!!

I can appreciate the shortening of runs too. When my phone at home was still on a copper pair, I had the repair in one day when it went down. He spent the better part of a day tracing the problem all over the neighborhood. Over the many years, the routing of that line had been changed many times to the point that it no longer was the shortest distance between two points!

Long story Pete but it does not involve making bad or marginal pairs good.What they do is dedicate 1 pair per living unit. For example say you live at the end of a cable run. You leave the main phone box called an xbox or sac on pair 1. Now maybe that pair is spliced into every other terminal in that run on binding post 1 also. What they are doing is cutting it out of those bp's in every terminal it appears except yours. That 1 foot of wire that is connected from the cable to the bp can affect the video signal.If you are for say in the middle of the run,that pair will stop at your terminal.The piece going further down the street will echo the signal back if left connected.The other thing that is done at the same time is the cable bonding,each cable has to have it's own seperate bond,no daisey chains. Rumor has it that the signal will not pass thru if a bond is missing or loose. When locating cables you sometimes have to remove the bonds to locate it. So I asked if it's removed to locate will everyone past the missing bond loose the TV? No one could tell me,but it stands to reason people will be making trouble calls and by the time the repairman is out,the locator will have put everything back together and the trouble will be gone. There is more to it than this Pete,but this is the general idea.

jbear wrote: Congrats on the graduation Gary. Bet you'll be glad to see those costs quit. As to your reflection as to why you were off...come up with any answers? john

Sorry I haven't been paying attention,but thanks John. This last semester was easy anyway since he's been here at home doing an internship at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
He's the reason I was off- it was snowing bad that morning so I took him to the train station so we didn't have to deal with getting his car back up our steep drive- and you know the rest.
Until sbc rode into town, I don't remember anyone who got suspended. Now we are treated like 2 year olds.
On a positive note, I have got my trailer apart,the extra holes that were drilled into it welded up and I'll call Monday to get it in to be sandblasted, so I can paint it since I'm off the week of the Memorial holiday- I have to get that extra day remember ?

88 Nautique wrote: That would have been unheard of when I started with the company. People would have been suspended.

Same here...plus the fact that you just wanted to try and do it right the first time.

Congrats on the graduation Gary. Bet you'll be glad to see those costs quit. As to your reflection as to why you were off...come up with any answers?

Getting pretty close to 30 Kurt....any thoughts of hanging it up?

john

I've been getting the boat ready and reflecting on why I had the day off
I'm also getting ready for the boy's college graduation this Saturday,so we've been busy. Spent all day Wednesday chasing those guy's around,they didn't get much training and are under so much pressure to hurry that they make many little mistakes that end up leaving customers out of service.

Gary & John,
Out here they hired a bunch of "term" splicers. The term is for two years. They were hired to condition copper pairs for this U-Verse service. I'm sure they will pick up a lot of them permanently when we have the mass exodus before the contract is up. We may loose 6 people out of 9 in our central office crew alone.
Kurt

Hey John,I didn't want to hijack that other thread but- It's been real quiet at work,but there has been some rumors.Too bad about your old boss,seems like politics always get in the way.Just 1 of many reasons I'd never take that job.One thing I have heard was the call center they set up for the new tv is not getting the volume they expected,1000 calls a day when they expected 3000.Those prem techs they hired to do the installs are being sent home with out pay because of no work.I also heard they don't want to layoff because they don't know how many are going to retire.
Back in Feburary we had a bad snow so I drove our son to the train station so I didn't have to try to get his car up the drive that night.Got to work and was told it was manditory to work 2hrs OT due to extream weather,told them I had other commitments,but would the next 2 days they needed.We all worked 2hrs the next day and the day after that they cancelled the ot! Well because I didn't work those 2 hrs I got suspended for a day.They really make you want to help them out.I have a good boss tho, he gave me this Thursday off and I'm ns Friday,Sat,Sun,and Monday! I should get the boat in for sure now Talk to you later