The Cable Guy

I met the single worst technician/repair/cable guy ever.

I stayed home all afternoon for the DirecTV guy to install our upgraded dish. We've been waiting for this appointment for weeks (the holiday season is their busy time of year).

When the guy showed up he immediately began to whine and complain. He hated the pitch of my roof and the type of shingles it had. The weather was cold (about 5º F) and he had to drive a long way paying for his own gas. He openly dreaded getting into our attic (which actually isn't that big of deal) and he had told me he felt pressured by the other three appointments he needed to do today.

But the deal breaker was when I mentioned our crawl space under the house. He sighed and huffed and puffed, shaking his head. I knew at that point there was no way he was going to do the job. Sure enough, he continued to whine and complain about the equipment, the limitations of the product I was buying, and how hard it is to install properly. Finally he peeked under our house and jumped up saying, "I can't do this. I'm too big. I don't do crawl spaces."

Seriously.

Then he went on to tell me how he didn't have the right equipment with him today because he'd lost his equipment in a house fire in '98. 1998. Eleven years ago! You've got to be kidding! This is what you do for a living and you haven't replaced your tools in eleven years!?! Stop chain-smoking and shrinking from challenges and you might be able to afford more tools.

He called his supervisor and also complained to me that customers are uninformed about what they need to do to make his job easier. In the end, he gave me DirecTV's 1-800 number and drove away, without installing a single thing!

I think it all comes down to this guy not wanting to climb a ladder or crawl under my house. Maybe he's in the wrong line of work.