Michael A Terrell on Fri, 29 Dec 2017
20:08:58 -0500 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
pyotr filipivich wrote:
Michael A Terrell on Fri, 29 Dec 2017
01:30:15 -0500 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

When they fired him for sexual harassment, they walked in a brand
new VP, with a new manager from our smallest systems. He ****ed me off
by telling me that "Any service company would be proud to have our
work", so I gave two weeks notice. I spent part of my last week
installing all new C-band microwave equipment, because Collins/Rockwell
would no longer service it, and none of those service companies would
touch it. I routinely rebuilt the Collins equipment in house for our
system, and other systems owned by United Video.

There is a part of me which asks "Why?" as they had a VP who knew
that they could outsource the service work, eh no? So it would be a
learning experience for them.


No, they had hired a VP who believed that the trade journals told
only the truth. Their advertisers were all in business to sell you new
equipment, or very shoddy repair services.

One company replaced 1000 power transformers with cheap Chinese,
with no thermal fuses. We had dozens of cable boxes overheat, and some
start fires. That meant that we had to locate every box they had
touched, out of 10,000 in customer's homes.

Another company would clean the band switches by wiping away the
lubricant, then use a fiberglass eraser to scrub the silver plating off
the contacts. Some of those had failed again, before we could unpack the
shipping boxes. All of the so called news articles were written by
people like 'Fast Eddie' who praised these shoddy companies, along with
vendors selling substandard hardware.

Since their main income was from shysters, they wrote steady streams
of articles about how it cost you money to attempt to repair converters,
amplifiers and power supplies, in house. I saved the company over one
million dollars in four years, and took us to the highest rated company
in the region. It fell to the bottom withing months of my leaving the
company.


OTOH, were I in such a situation, I would definitely want to make
life simpler to the customers. After all, the day will come when you
say "I worked for Industrial Widget" and someone will form their
opinion of you because of their experience with Industrial Widget -
even if it is long after you left.

Long standing grip - people doing crappy work which goes out and
because I work for the same company, it makes me look bad.


I got calls from other cable systems that we owned, and I was
offered a job to manage a group of our systems in Stuttgart Arkansas,
but I would still have to deal with that same moron. The VP of
Marketing, and the head of our Microwave division were both angry that I
had given notice. I wasn't going to be micromanaged by an even bigger
idiot than that manager I'd fought with for four years to do my job
well, on time and on budget.

He insisted on ordering things in multiples of 25, 100, 250, 1000
etc. Repair parts were easier to purchase by the case. I would ask for
96 new cable box cases. He would order 100. We would wait two to four
months, until other people ordered enough fractional cases to use the
other 92 in a second case. 96 would have arrived in six working days.

He insisted on buying the Japanese made control cables. I would
order two 1000 foot spools of Belden 'Converter cable', and spend one
shift making cables in house. They cost us less than half as much per
cable, and they lasted much longer.

The only remaining product of United Video Cablevision is their
'Electronic Program Guide' service. In the early '80s, it was done on a
mainframe in the SW, and a pair of leased data lines took it to Chicago
and back where it was transmitted as a subcarrier on WGN, one of our
Superstation feeds.


"It's going out right, so you might as well do it right the first
time." One of those bossims I learned back in my youth'
--
pyotr filipivich
"With Age comes Wisdom. Although far too often, Age travels alone."