Hey Guys,

First off, the good news is I got digital cable! (A little pricy with my HBO/Showtime, but I finally made the switch. My cable service has been very good for several years...but.)

I am amazed at the lack of knowlege or skills that the cable TV installers have. They seem to know very little about their products or services, and considering the amount of money that we are paying, you would expect people to know at least basic competency about what they are doing.

For example, about a year ago on our analog service, our HBO went dark for about two weeks, so I let it go figuring--ahh they are just doing something. So I call customer service, who were friendly and helpful and say we will send somebody out. The first guy said, "Oh I have never seen a dark picture on just one channel before and I have been doing this for 5 years." He replaced our box and said he would contact his supervisor and said (this was bullsh*it) "It looks like we may have to come out and do some outside rewiring."

So the second guy comes out and is much worse than the first guy. He thinks there is nothing wrong with the picture! (And on HBO at this time, everything is almost totally black) We told him what the first guy said about the rewiring and he's like "what" no the problem must be your TV!

I tell the guy it's a brand new TV, and it was, and the picture is great on every other channel. He says, "Oh that doesn't mean anything, new TV's can have problems, call HBO and tell them the problem cause it's not on our end."

So we call HBO and talk to a supervisor and he is just livid that the guy even suggested that we call them. (He was nice to us, but his response was as mine was) "How could a cable tech even suggest that?"

So we called our cable company, got the problem taken care of through a supervisor. (It was their signal all along) It's just amazing to have to go through all of this because the installing and working the boxes don't know what they are talking about most of the time.

Jack

Is it Charter cable? I know what u mean about them being dumb..A couple years ago, our channels were so fuzzy that we could barely watch anything. Well, we got the cable guy to come after calling the cable office a lot, & after he tracked mud all over the house w/ his big assed muddy boots, all he said was that our VCR was old & making the picture fuzzy. We unhooked it & the tv was still too fuzzy to watch, so we got the guy to come back, & he went outside to look at the pole where the cable line was hooked, & turns out the thing was all worn out. He said something like, "WEll, no wonder your channels were fuzzy..I don't know how you were getting any tv at all, ha, ha, her, her."

You're right, some cable guys are dumber than stumps. I had one who was not only stupid but rude as well. He used arrogance to mask his incompetency. He was abrupt with me--half answered my questions, probably because he didn't have any answers.
I have been fortunate and had knowledgable cable technicians, but for the most part, they're not adequately trained. It's as if they were working at McDonalds the week before. :crazy:

Sometimes a "dumb" cable installer can accidently work in your favor. I had free HBO for six months one time because the installer accidently set me up at the same time he set up a neighbor. I didn't know that that was what had happened and I didn't ask until one day the installer came out to do something with the neighbors cable. While he was at it he disconnected 'my' HBO. I told him so, and since he knew that he was the one who had mistakenly set it up in the first place he just said, "Yeah, I know." I laughed and said, Aww dang.

Not all are dumb. :D We just got direct TV and the guy knew what he was doin'. Anyway, I do agree some don't have a clue what their doing most of the time.

You should have seen some of the morons I've had to deal with since my family became Sky Digital subscribers 4 years ago!
The most trouble those idiots caused was when I contacted them about getting a second subscription so I could have my own digi-box in my room thus allowing me to watch whatever I want, regardless of what my parents are watching on Sky.
I'd arranged to take the day off work cos an installer was meant to be coming round on the Monday afternoon "between 10am and 2pm". The guy never showed up - I'd taken the day off work for nothing (and believe me it wasn't easy convincing my boss to let me have the day off in the first place!). I hung around the house all day and I eventually phoned Sky at 7pm and they said, very casually, "oh yeah, sorry about that. The installer ran out of digiboxes. You'll need to reschedule."
So I then took another day off work. This time the guy did bother to show up (how considerate of him!) but he told me that he couldn't do anything because my satalite dish was above a certain height and a "special heights" installer would have to do the job.
The special heights team finally came round over a month later but, I'll tell ya, there was nothing special about these guys!!! They were so stupid! You should have seen the mess they made of my house! They drilled all these holes in the walls to run the cables through - they drilled 5 holes when all they really needed was to drill 2. They also had absolutely no idea how to tune my TV in. I did - of course I'd know cos it's my TV - but would they let me do it?! Would they hell! They were obviously a bit ticked off cos I knew more about their job than they did. I also had to supply them with some of the connection cables they needed cos they didn't have any! It's lucky that I had some spare lying around or I would probably have had to reschedule again!
Thanks to those dumbasses I now have a huge cable running right down my roof, down the side of my house and right accross the middle of the side wall and through a really nasty looking hole in my wall. If they'd just have listened to me they could've run the cable under the gutter where noone would have seen it, the job would've been done a hell of a lot quicker and the outside of my house wouldn't look such a mess!!

Originally posted by XoVanillaRain90oX
Not all are dumb. :D We just got direct TV and the guy knew what he was doin'. Good of you to point that out. We wouldn't want to diss the entire cable guy population. Are there any cable gals that anyone knows of for sure? I don't think I've ever seen one.

Originally posted by kittflynn
Are there any cable gals that anyone knows of for sure? I don't think I've ever seen one.

I dunno, but I wouldn't mind becoming one. I think that'd be cool.

LOL we had teh dumbest cable guy at our house 2 years ago in my old house. My dad was fed up with cable so decided to cancel everything abd have the cable guy over to cut the wire. Well I was devastated. But when the cable guy came, he was too lazy to cut the line on the pole, so he just cut it where is was on the house. Well a few days later my dad tried to tape the wire back up and it turned out that the cable was working great, and we got HBO and Showtime! Aha! so he just left it like that, and to this day, that house has free cable. The new owners were some lucky bunch. My mom went back a few months ago, to Chicago, and said that the cable was teh same way as we left it. :lol:

Originally posted by Ricky Ricardo
But when the cable guy came, he was too lazy to cut the line on the pole, so he just cut it where is was on the house. Well a few days later my dad tried to tape the wire back up and it turned out that the cable was working great, and we got HBO and Showtime! Aha! so he just left it like that, and to this day, that house has free cable.


That's so cool! It's too bad not all cable installers are that lazy. If that was the case, everyone who ever cancelled cable could also get free cable. :lol:

Originally posted by Ricky Ricardo
LOL we had teh dumbest cable guy at our house 2 years ago in my old house. My dad was fed up with cable so decided to cancel everything abd have the cable guy over to cut the wire. Well I was devastated. But when the cable guy came, he was too lazy to cut the line on the pole, so he just cut it where is was on the house. Well a few days later my dad tried to tape the wire back up and it turned out that the cable was working great, and we got HBO and Showtime! Aha! so he just left it like that, and to this day, that house has free cable. The new owners were some lucky bunch. My mom went back a few months ago, to Chicago, and said that the cable was teh same way as we left it. :lol: LOL, you lucked out in that case. ;) I remember I had DTV for ONE month, and everytime I had problems, they'll say to either restart it, return it, or "the whole neighborhood is facing the same problem, it will be fixed momentarily." Arghh.

Alot of them appear Dumb dont they??

Several times I got a new cable modem and Iw anted to lock it down to MY MAC and the guy said it couldnt be done on the newer models...... After he leaves I go into the menu and find the spot to do it!!

I swear they do it on purpose like they dont want you too know what you can do!!

They cant be this stupid??