ah ok

like, you open boxes in the neighborhoods, install DSLAMs, connect that stuff, sometimes open the street to find a disconnected cable and fix it

that kind of stuff?

I'm only used to women asking me that...on the first date. Most of them used to find other points of interest after they realized I barely crack six figures (with overtime)

I work in a rural market that only has DSLAMS in the central office but the rest of it is pretty spot on. I do a LOT work in the rainbow spaghetti

ah ok

LOL...I just bought a replacement part from Kreg tools that cost 10 bucks but it was six bucks for shipping and another buck-sixteen for tax....psh

oof

I used to assemble large scale industrial machinery, lots of communication and power cables, cabling the control cabinets, and the field devices, also debugging PLC software and such, also did the stuff for hydraulic and pneumatic systems, and assembled gearboxes and other mechanical parts of the machines, but then I went to university getting a degree in engineering, now I work in control engineering/embedded software for the electric drives of electric cars

your job is probably pretty safe, people aren't suddenly not going to need telecommunication anymore

and there will always be stuff breaking or new connections needed

ACTUALLY we just went through what the company calls a surplus where they indicated that we were over headcount for the area. The amount of work we have is cyclic so some of the year we're overencumbered and some of the year we're scrambling to find things to do with a tiny bit of time between the two where it's just right. Since 2014 we went from 12 guys on the team to just six before the surplus, we're currently down to five thanks to the forced headcount reduction.

that sucks

esp. as then suddenly they'll hire unexperienced people when there is more work to do

So five guys (yup all dudes in this market but I've heard there's a female tech that uh...never actually comes in to work as she's constantly off for FMLA stuff) for this whole county and three guys for the next county up

so do they give you aid from teams from other areas around your county in general?

if there is less to do there etc.

No, they haven't hired anyone in this company specifically for this job since...heck when was that. 2001, maybe? They've been gritting their teeth trying to get rid of this job title for ages

yeah so they are sort of wearing down everything

And yes, sometimes 'loaners' come in from other markets when they run out of work

they see it as an established market with not much growth to come, so they'll just try to take out as much money as they can for each year

I mean in the end a telco is a property business (owning the tubes with your telco cables), and you guys are the janitors 😄 (no offense)

They could drop a TINY bit of money and upgrade our fiber fed Xboxes to full VRADs...push that internet signal farther out

:/

Oh, no you're absolutely correct...janitors, though. I like it. One of my coworkers called us certified turd polishers

that reminds me

you heard that US politician calling the interent "a series of tubes"

he was ridiculed for that, but I think it is kind of true, the largest cost is actually laying the tubes that the cables go into

I really just avoid a lot of the governmenty things...those guys are on a separate level and way out of touch

then the next big cost factor is the actual cables, and then far behind in cost comes the electronic devices like DSLAMs and routers etc.

ah yes

`A series of tubes" is a phrase coined originally as an analogy by then-United States Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) `

We have a LOT of trouble between closures and the company is extremely resistant to cable replacement because of the iternal rate of return in areas that don't have internet service

They've essentially told us that they're done replacing our cables and if we need to bypass anything we need to consider aerial service wires and as a last resort buried service wire

Yeah...DROPS in lieu of actual cable. The most advanced network in the nation is held together by drop wire and hopes and dreams

ok, that fits what I said earlier then, they see it as cash cow, they just want to take out as much money as they can and let it detoriate

you guys also lay fiber?

I mean you have to really, right?

We have fiber here but it's not for residential use. it's mostly business fiber and what runs the internet service

you'll probably have to lay some more for the 5G base stations

That part was done earlier this year, tbh. We've got fiber to the towers and we're adding more towers to the area but they haven't turned up 5G yet