wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Maybe, if the company is run by idiots. We had a fleet of trucks,
equipped for different brands

HVAC don't work like that. You don't schedule your work by
'what brands of equipment are waiting for service'.


That's one of the reasons the work is so inefficient. One would
think that the building permit would list the equipment being installed,
and that information be available from the county. Hell, if they keep
track of the size of your septic tank and drain field, they should do
the same for the HVAC equipment for tax purposes.


Yawn. I lived in Alaska for a while. Try driving a ground rod
through permafrost when it's -40 outside.

Hell, try taking a pee out there ! ;-)


What do you think you have to do during survival training? You sure
as hell can't wait three or four days to get to a bathroom. You had
some 25 year old C-rations, a folding shovel, a tent half and SIX
matches. You had to make a shelter, build a fire and not end up dead.
Training didn't start till they were sure that the daytime temp wouldn't
be above -20 during the test. Also, the 0% humidity was hell on your
skin. It would dry out and crack, then bleed.


--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.

The Daring Dufas wrote:

There are weasels and speckled anuses everywhere, I don't think those
critters will ever become extinct. 8-)


There have always been thieves and liars. They are related to the
cockroach, and will be the only other thing to survive a nuclear winter,



--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.

wrote:

On Mon, 27 Sep 2010 23:03:36 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


wrote:

On Mon, 27 Sep 2010 19:06:14 -0500, AZ Nomad
wrote:

On Mon, 27 Sep 2010 19:54:21 -0400, wrote:
...

If you happen to need a 50 lb tank of gas, or a 30 lb torch, or a 20
lb vacumn up there - get to humpin' it. Then bring it all down again.

And you better get 4 or 5 calls done, minimum, on a slow day.

TV repairmen are wusses.

TV repairmen are extinct. Nobody is going to pay $500 to fix a $500 TV.
There was a while when some shops could stay in business fixing big
screen (40"+) tv's but that was only while such TV's cost $5000. Those
days are pretty much gone.

Yep. And the models change so often, you couldn't get parts
anyway.


You would try to use duct tape and scrap thermostat wire, so what do
you know?

I know you can bite me.


I won't, but I know you're used to it. ;-)


--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.

The Daring Dufas wrote:

On 9/27/2010 6:54 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 27 Sep 2010 18:54:09 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


Grumpy wrote:

Perhaps some of you do not know difference going back to finish job
or getting call back, now we are going on subject of warrantees

I had one call back in apx. 20 years, and the reason that I had that
because of manufacturing screwed up which I windup paying for it
That is also because I did not go by my own instinct but lessoning
to some else big mistake that will not happen again!!!


Sigh. What a load. A 'callback' on some of my jobs would require it
to be scheduled on one of NASA's launches to the ISS. A lot of the work
I've done was mission critical. There was no room for mistakes. Only
when working as a TV tech when I was still in high school were the
standards low enough to see the occasional callback. Of course, tube
TVs needed a lot more maintenance than modern electronics.

So - the supply house carries maybe 10,000 items in stock.
They have maybe another 40,000 or 100,000 they can order. You want
the HVAC guy should carry one of each on his truck ?

A quick check at some random parts site

http://americanhvacparts.com/Merchan...egory_Code=ele

Shows 24 TEV's for just one manufacturer. They are not
interchangeable. They list 29 other manufacturers with TEV's as well.

You figure the HVAC guy should carry 700 TEV's on his truck ? And
that's just one part among hundreds that are common.

Now try doing the work outside, at night, in the rain, or in a
blizzard, or in the blazing sun on a 98 degree humid day. Try having
to go up and down a 32 foot ladder and then walk ~ 1/4 mile across a
white roof in the sun to get to the unit. And back again for each
tool or part you need.

If you happen to need a 50 lb tank of gas, or a 30 lb torch, or a 20
lb vacumn up there - get to humpin' it. Then bring it all down again.

And you better get 4 or 5 calls done, minimum, on a slow day.

TV repairmen are wusses.




There are TXV kits that allow for putting one together on site. A
universal blower and condenser fan motor is available too as are
universal oil filled capacitors. The problem with them is cost,
the universal capacitor that has muli-taps costs $50-$60 wholesale,
where a standard value costs as little as five bucks. As for TV
repairmen being wusses, 35 years ago I managed a TV repair/sales
shop and there was nothing wussy about carrying a 300lb console
TV up a flight of stairs or climbing on a roof to install a 50 foot
mast. giant antenna and rotator. These days, some of the flat screen
TV's I've come across weigh more than a fat woman. Back in the day,
TV repairmen did a lot of climbing and spent time in attics installing
twin lead and coax cable. Of course, when I was involved, CB radio
was a big thing with another set of antennas and cables to run.


Most of the techs I worked with were skinny from the exercise they
got at work. I worked in two TV shops. One while I was in jr. high
school, and another right after I graduated. Did you ever have to move
one of those eight foot wide Zenith TVs with a solid slate top? They
had warning labels that it needed six people because of the weight. An
old man named Dave and I loaded and unloaded several by ourselves.


--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.

Stormin Mormon wrote:

Usually said with a note of disgust. "I'm not going to pay $$$
for...." as in, the price is too high. I had one of those a couple
months ago.


I had a customer tell me that I had to use the rear door to service a
TV that was less than six feet from the front door, 'because all service
people use the back door'. I told her that I didn't have time for her
stupid games, but would play along, as long as she agreed to pay for a
second service call, since the other door was a second location. She
got mad and said, You can't talk to me that way. I shrugged and said,
No problem, but I will tell other shops about your attitude. She turned
red and said, You can't blacklist people! I smiled and said, There is
no blacklist, but there are a couple people who have to call someone 35
miles away for anything they need repaired. Now, Do you want your TV
fixed? If not, I have six more calls before I can go home. She opened
the door and let me in. I was done 10 minutes later and she was happy.

Over the next few months she referred almost a dozen of her
neighbors, and was telling them that we were top notch.


--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.

The Daring Dufas wrote:

On 9/28/2010 7:27 AM, HeyBub wrote:
Stormin Mormon wrote:
My experience with smokers has not been good. I prefer not to work
with them. Of course, my allergies help make that decision.


You can get shots to alleviate your allergies.



You can also shoot a smoker in the head. 8-)


I worked with a bunch of idiots who would all light up by the return
vent and fill the entire shop & office area with smoke. I opened the
register and saturated the filter with Lysol. They came in the next
morning and light up As soon as they took a deep breath, they were
coughing and gagging. ;-)

--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.

wrote:

On Tue, 28 Sep 2010 07:27:24 -0500, "HeyBub"
wrote:

Stormin Mormon wrote:
My experience with smokers has not been good. I prefer not to work
with them. Of course, my allergies help make that decision.


You can get shots to alleviate your allergies.


But you can't fix stupid.


That doesn't mean you have to elect them.


--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.

wrote:

On Mon, 27 Sep 2010 23:15:03 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


wrote:

On Mon, 27 Sep 2010 20:08:55 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

No kidding. I've worked 20 hour days to get a job done on time, rather
than make return trips.

Then you're an idiot.


Yawn. Exactly what I'd expect from some lazy ass like you. A good
customer has an emergency. They offer to pay for the overtime, so you
sk the crew if they want the work. When they say yes, you do the job.
Some where scheduled, but waiting for all the parts to arrive before we
started the job.

Fine. That's not what you said. You said 'rather than make
return trips', which is bull****.

And if you want to talk 'extreme' - I've had compressors (
there was exactly one in existence in the country ) flown in overnight
on a chartered Lear jet, met at the airport by a truck, driven to the
jobsite where a crane and crew and me were waiting at 6 AM.

When a cleanroom costs $ 50,000 / hour in downtime, you don't
**** around, or worry about the chump change.


Whine, whine whine. $50,000? Big deal.

I talked a scientist in Antarctica through a repair procedure on a
piece of equipment they had damaged to keep them from losing data on a
two year project.

I built a KU band communications system that is a permanent part of
the International Space Station. It is used for voice, video and data
uplinks. The downlink was done with some of our standard equipment, but
the ISS only has 48 VDC power and the equipment has to be built into one
of their fancy low G aluminum rack modules.

I built the earth station that NOAA uses to control their LEO (Low
Earth Orbit) weather satellites, and to receive the weather sat photos.

I built two earth stations for Italy, for their part in the European
Space Agency. One fixed site, the other in an european style military
trailer.

Yeh, well I built the Alaskan pipeline, the space station, and
the Large Hadron Collider, in between managing Barack Obama's campaign
( Axlerod and Plouffe were my sock-puppets ).


No, you didn't. However, I worked for Microdyne and was involved in
all those projects. Whenever something critical was being built, I was
involved. They knew that I wouldn't let anything slip by my bench with
problems.

I also built Ch. 58 TV in Destin Florida in the early '90s. I moved
and rebuilt a RCA TTU-25B transmitter and laid out the engineering area
and studio. I was the 'Engineer of Record' on the FCC's CP. That was
the third TV station I worked at as an engineer.


BTW, I was in Alaska when the pipeline was under construction, and a
couple miles from the recent oil spill at the Delta Junction/Greely
pumping station. I was one of the broadcast engineers at the AFRTS TV
station at Greely. It was on Ch. 8, and had a pair of Gates
transmitters. B&W, and no video tape.


OK, are we done pulling our puds now ?


I wasn't, but you'll never quit.


--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.

The Daring Dufas wrote:

On 9/27/2010 8:14 PM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Steve wrote:

Yep, I certainly do. If you are not properly equipped to fix the
problem, you charge extra for your incompetence.

Not everybody uses a warehouse sized semi for a service truck.


I used a stepvan for field work. It saved me a lot of time, and I
could do a couple more jobs per day because of it.



My dream is to own one of those Sprinter vans, they're nice.


They look nice, but my days of needing one are over.


I lucked out and bought a six year old 'Union City' stepvan on a
Chevy chassis for $1300. It had been a uniform delivery truck, and they
were replacing 60+ steel body trucks with hinged doors with a fleet of
new aluminum body with roll up doors. Most of the fleet was Ford &
International. They were the first gone, but I wanted the Chevy. I have
worked on an International, and didn't like the Fords. The fleet
manager smiled and told me that the couple Chevy trucks were down the
least of any in their fleet, and had the lowest operating costs. I had
that truck for about ten years, and only spent a couple hundred dollars
on repairs. I used it to repair the electronics for three school
systems.


--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.

Ron wrote:

On Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:08:59 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


Did you ever have to move
one of those eight foot wide Zenith TVs with a solid slate top? They
had warning labels that it needed six people because of the weight. An
old man named Dave and I loaded and unloaded several by ourselves.

Because you couldn't read?


Yawn. I don't work in HVAC.

We were in the customer's home, and would have had to make a second
trip, and have several other crews with us. Instead, we just loaded it
ourselves, and then watched the young punks at the shop struggle for 15
minutes to get it into the shop.


--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote in message
m...

wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Maybe, if the company is run by idiots. We had a fleet of trucks,
equipped for different brands

HVAC don't work like that. You don't schedule your work by
'what brands of equipment are waiting for service'.


That's one of the reasons the work is so inefficient. One would
think that the building permit would list the equipment being installed,
and that information be available from the county. Hell, if they keep
track of the size of your septic tank and drain field, they should do
the same for the HVAC equipment for tax purposes.

I don't know what country your living in, but in these parts, unless your
inside the city limits of a major city, there is no code enforcement, and
most small towns don't want to even take your money for a permit unless you
had to shut off power to the building..... and then the inspector job is a
brother-in-law thing.

On 9/28/2010 11:54 AM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

The Daring Dufas wrote:

On 9/27/2010 10:02 PM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

wrote:

On Mon, 27 Sep 2010 20:03:10 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


wrote:

On Mon, 27 Sep 2010 18:54:09 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


Grumpy wrote:

Perhaps some of you do not know difference going back to finish job
or getting call back, now we are going on subject of warrantees

I had one call back in apx. 20 years, and the reason that I had that
because of manufacturing screwed up which I windup paying for it
That is also because I did not go by my own instinct but lessoning
to some else big mistake that will not happen again!!!


Sigh. What a load. A 'callback' on some of my jobs would require it
to be scheduled on one of NASA's launches to the ISS. A lot of the work
I've done was mission critical. There was no room for mistakes. Only
when working as a TV tech when I was still in high school were the
standards low enough to see the occasional callback. Of course, tube
TVs needed a lot more maintenance than modern electronics.

So - the supply house carries maybe 10,000 items in stock.
They have maybe another 40,000 or 100,000 they can order. You want
the HVAC guy should carry one of each on his truck ?



Sigh. What a moron. How hard is it to ask what brand you will be
servicing, or even better, you keep records of what eqyuiipment each
customer owns? I carred close to 10,000 parts in my service truck for

Bull**** you did. BTW, that bag or tray of 10 or 100
resistors of a certain value doesn't count as '100 parts', it counts
as 'one'.


Yawn. You know nothing about electronic repair. The E24 range has a
lot of different values. Then they come in multiple wattages, and
specail applications. Fusible reistors used to be very common, and there
were a lot of different versions.

Capacitors come in values from picfards to microfards, in a lot of
different voltages and dielectrics. Then there were tubes, transistors,
ICs, switches, controls and hardware. There was probably over a half
million different parts made over the years, but you usually only saw
about a dozen or so brands in an area. I'm sure that the wolsalers of
your junk don't carry every brand of equipment, so you are using a
pathetic strawman.


Moron.

1 ) you assume it's a prior customer, where there would BE
records of what's there.


If the HVAC industry wasn't full of theives you'd have customer
loyalty.


2 ) you assume they KNOW what kind of unit it is, or can find
out ( hint - maybe SOMETIMES in residential, almost NEVER in
commercial work ).

3 ) You imply that the service guy is going to go back to the
shop and custom-stock his truck for a particular brand.


Maybe, if the company is run by idiots. We had a fleet of trucks,
equipped for different brands

electronics. I rarely ever took anything back to the shop, except when
some 'bucther' (a so-called tech that uses a meat cleaver to take things
apart) had really screwed it up.

Yah, HVAC guys rarely take the unit back to the shop either.
Except Stormy, who only works on window units.


About the only things I took back to the shop were entire intercom
consoles, and only after some idiot left it in an unsafe condition.




A quick check at some random parts site

http://americanhvacparts.com/Merchan...egory_Code=ele

Shows 24 TEV's for just one manufacturer. They are not
interchangeable. They list 29 other manufacturers with TEV's as well.


And you never have a clue what you are going to work on?

'An AC unit' is usually the only info. And yeh, for a repeat
customer, I know they have all XYZ brand on the roof - 100 - 200 units
maybe. Maybe 10 different sizes and configurations.

And I have a clue that that's only one of the calls I have to
take that day. The call is some other brand, equipment type,
whatever. You think the tech goes back to the shop to load up for
'XYZ' brand for one call ? You think he takes 100 + parts off his
truck and puts a different 100 + on, based on what brand of unit he's
headed to ? Moron.


You're repating yourerself. You need to up your medication.



You figure the HVAC guy should carry 700 TEV's on his truck ? And
that's just one part among hundreds that are common.

Now try doing the work outside, at night, in the rain, or in a
blizzard, or in the blazing sun on a 98 degree humid day. Try having
to go up and down a 32 foot ladder and then walk ~ 1/4 mile across a
white roof in the sun to get to the unit. And back again for each
tool or part you need.


try working outside at -40

Been there, done that. Try doing it INSIDE at -40, too.


Yawn. I lived in Alaska for a while. Try driving a ground rod
through permafrost when it's -40 outside.



Try hauling ANY torch up a broadcast tower.

WTF would you do with it up there ? Splice co-ax ?


You would probably try, except for the fact that you don't use coax
on a TV broadcast tower. You use waveguide. 1/2" thick, and quite
heavy. There are rubber seals between the flanges so it can be
pressurized. Sometimes you have to cut off a damaged mounting bracket
or a damaged bolt in a tower leg. Work you would never understand, with
your Radio Shack crimper and rusty flea marked 'F' fittings.



When I worked at the missile range, a backhoe operator dug up a $30,000
piece of hard-line coax going to one of the towers. He wasn't to blame
because he was digging where both the Army and Core of Engineers said
was clear. I can't imagine what that piece of coax would cost today.



That sounds like 'Heliax' in the 3" range that was used for microwave
& c-band sat dishes.



It was Heliax but it went to a tower from a high power transmitter. I
don't know what size it was, I got the story second hand from the comm
techs. Our backhoe operator hit a high pressure water line on another
island and he was digging where he was shown. There was so much stuff
underground there that the permanent staff didn't know where it all was.
We found the skeletons of Japanese soldiers and live ammunition all over
the place. The island has an EOD unit stationed there because of it.

TDD

On 9/28/2010 12:08 PM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

The Daring Dufas wrote:

On 9/27/2010 6:54 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 27 Sep 2010 18:54:09 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


Grumpy wrote:

Perhaps some of you do not know difference going back to finish job
or getting call back, now we are going on subject of warrantees

I had one call back in apx. 20 years, and the reason that I had that
because of manufacturing screwed up which I windup paying for it
That is also because I did not go by my own instinct but lessoning
to some else big mistake that will not happen again!!!


Sigh. What a load. A 'callback' on some of my jobs would require it
to be scheduled on one of NASA's launches to the ISS. A lot of the work
I've done was mission critical. There was no room for mistakes. Only
when working as a TV tech when I was still in high school were the
standards low enough to see the occasional callback. Of course, tube
TVs needed a lot more maintenance than modern electronics.

So - the supply house carries maybe 10,000 items in stock.
They have maybe another 40,000 or 100,000 they can order. You want
the HVAC guy should carry one of each on his truck ?

A quick check at some random parts site

http://americanhvacparts.com/Merchan...egory_Code=ele

Shows 24 TEV's for just one manufacturer. They are not
interchangeable. They list 29 other manufacturers with TEV's as well.

You figure the HVAC guy should carry 700 TEV's on his truck ? And
that's just one part among hundreds that are common.

Now try doing the work outside, at night, in the rain, or in a
blizzard, or in the blazing sun on a 98 degree humid day. Try having
to go up and down a 32 foot ladder and then walk ~ 1/4 mile across a
white roof in the sun to get to the unit. And back again for each
tool or part you need.

If you happen to need a 50 lb tank of gas, or a 30 lb torch, or a 20
lb vacumn up there - get to humpin' it. Then bring it all down again.

And you better get 4 or 5 calls done, minimum, on a slow day.

TV repairmen are wusses.




There are TXV kits that allow for putting one together on site. A
universal blower and condenser fan motor is available too as are
universal oil filled capacitors. The problem with them is cost,
the universal capacitor that has muli-taps costs $50-$60 wholesale,
where a standard value costs as little as five bucks. As for TV
repairmen being wusses, 35 years ago I managed a TV repair/sales
shop and there was nothing wussy about carrying a 300lb console
TV up a flight of stairs or climbing on a roof to install a 50 foot
mast. giant antenna and rotator. These days, some of the flat screen
TV's I've come across weigh more than a fat woman. Back in the day,
TV repairmen did a lot of climbing and spent time in attics installing
twin lead and coax cable. Of course, when I was involved, CB radio
was a big thing with another set of antennas and cables to run.


Most of the techs I worked with were skinny from the exercise they
got at work. I worked in two TV shops. One while I was in jr. high
school, and another right after I graduated. Did you ever have to move
one of those eight foot wide Zenith TVs with a solid slate top? They
had warning labels that it needed six people because of the weight. An
old man named Dave and I loaded and unloaded several by ourselves.



It's all about leverage. 8-)

TDD

On 9/28/2010 11:10 AM, AZ Nomad wrote:
On Tue, 28 Sep 2010 10:51:31 -0500, The Daring wrote:
You know, if you tell the customer it was your fault and fix it, they'll
have more respect for you and call you back because you were honest with
them. I see guys try to pull the wool over the customer's eyes and they
will lose out when they get caught. I repaired a system for a friend's
elderly mother when a couple of guys came out and shorted out the
compressor for one of her AC units. They told her it would be $5000.00
to replace the whole system because it was all bad. The crooks are being
sued and I explained to the attorney what they did to destroy her
AC system. Such assholes are universally despised by most of the other
repair techs in the business because it tends to give everyone a bad
name. "Oh yea. all of those XXXX are crooks" is the impression that all
people will wind up with and it happens in all the trades.

I got a referrel for a mobile mechanic and had him replace timing belt and
struts. On the strut job, he caught a rear seatbelt behind the seat and left a
clunking noise in the front end. They the joy began. He came by said there
were worn out spring retaining rings and he'd have to order them. Went on
vacation and upon returning found out that the part would still be in on
"thursday", but it was the week after he had originally said. Scheduled him for
friday. No show. Scheduled for monday. Got jerked along all day, scheduled
for tuesday; jerked along again and no show on wednesday. I didn't even bother
staying home that day, figured I'd wait for his call (which never came). This
went on for weeks. I have a job where I can work from home when I have to, but
there are limits! Finally I gave up, took it to a garage mechanic who
discovered a loose sway bar mounting bracket, fixed it and the seat belt for
$65.

Needless to say, I won't be using that mobile mechanic again. Too bad. If he
wasn't such a jerk about finishing his work, he'd have future business.
I had recommended him earlier to coworkers; I've of course now warned them
to avoid him.

It's all about how you treat folks. I don't mistreat anyone and I will
not tolerate being mistreated for any amount of money. I fire a few
customers every year. If I'm ever treated with arrogance and disrespect
by a customer, I finish the job and become no longer available to them.

TDD

On 9/28/2010 12:19 PM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

The Daring Dufas wrote:

On 9/28/2010 7:27 AM, HeyBub wrote:
Stormin Mormon wrote:
My experience with smokers has not been good. I prefer not to work
with them. Of course, my allergies help make that decision.


You can get shots to alleviate your allergies.



You can also shoot a smoker in the head. 8-)


I worked with a bunch of idiots who would all light up by the return
vent and fill the entire shop& office area with smoke. I opened the
register and saturated the filter with Lysol. They came in the next
morning and light up As soon as they took a deep breath, they were
coughing and gagging. ;-)


I smoked for 9 months then I was born. People didn't know any better
back in the middle of the last century. Instead of a snot nosed kid,
I was a green slime kid. I'm deathly allergic to tobacco smoke and
can tell if the driver in the car in front of me on the freeway is
smoking without seeing them. If I go into a place full of smokers,
my sinuses close up and my eyes water. Heck. it's like pepper spray
to me. Some people are polite and understanding about it (friends)
and many are jerks about it (enemas). 8-)

TDD

The Daring Dufas wrote:

It was Heliax but it went to a tower from a high power transmitter.


100" of 3" was over $3,000 in the early '80s.


I don't know what size it was, I got the story second hand from the comm
techs. Our backhoe operator hit a high pressure water line on another
island and he was digging where he was shown. There was so much stuff
underground there that the permanent staff didn't know where it all was.
We found the skeletons of Japanese soldiers and live ammunition all over
the place. The island has an EOD unit stationed there because of


I can believe that. The work I did in the military was often at old
sites where all the records were lost. Ft Greely started out as an Army
Air Corps airfield. Later, it was part of the early US Air Force. Then
it was mothballed for a while, and reopened as an Army base, before
being mothballed again. Now, it is being reactivated for another use.
There were very few records about the original base, which was a couple
miles from the new base. That made it fun for the guys in the steam
plant with all the buried pipes between buildings. All utilities on the
new section were underground in well marked service trenches, but
everything except for water, sewage and steam were still overhead.

Ft Rucker still had a lot of their W.W.II buildings. Some original
wood office buildings and warehouses were still in use, but the old
barracks were being sold off for scrap lumber. I had to go in and
remove cable TV drops to the abandoned classrooms before those buildings
were sold for scrap.

Ft Knox was still using their W.W.II firetrap two story barracks for
basic training. What a joke! They had two 10 A circuits for the entire
building. After you added up the lights and the furnace blower there
wasn't enough for a couple radios. The furnaces were next to the
latrine to keep the plumbing from freezing, and that was about all they
could so.


--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.

On Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:38:46 -0500, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 9/28/2010 11:10 AM, AZ Nomad wrote:
On Tue, 28 Sep 2010 10:51:31 -0500, The Daring wrote:
You know, if you tell the customer it was your fault and fix it, they'll
have more respect for you and call you back because you were honest with
them. I see guys try to pull the wool over the customer's eyes and they
will lose out when they get caught. I repaired a system for a friend's
elderly mother when a couple of guys came out and shorted out the
compressor for one of her AC units. They told her it would be $5000.00
to replace the whole system because it was all bad. The crooks are being
sued and I explained to the attorney what they did to destroy her
AC system. Such assholes are universally despised by most of the other
repair techs in the business because it tends to give everyone a bad
name. "Oh yea. all of those XXXX are crooks" is the impression that all
people will wind up with and it happens in all the trades.

I got a referrel for a mobile mechanic and had him replace timing belt and
struts. On the strut job, he caught a rear seatbelt behind the seat and left a
clunking noise in the front end. They the joy began. He came by said there
were worn out spring retaining rings and he'd have to order them. Went on
vacation and upon returning found out that the part would still be in on
"thursday", but it was the week after he had originally said. Scheduled him for
friday. No show. Scheduled for monday. Got jerked along all day, scheduled
for tuesday; jerked along again and no show on wednesday. I didn't even bother
staying home that day, figured I'd wait for his call (which never came). This
went on for weeks. I have a job where I can work from home when I have to, but
there are limits! Finally I gave up, took it to a garage mechanic who
discovered a loose sway bar mounting bracket, fixed it and the seat belt for
$65.

Needless to say, I won't be using that mobile mechanic again. Too bad. If he
wasn't such a jerk about finishing his work, he'd have future business.
I had recommended him earlier to coworkers; I've of course now warned them
to avoid him.

It's all about how you treat folks. I don't mistreat anyone and I will
not tolerate being mistreated for any amount of money. I fire a few
customers every year. If I'm ever treated with arrogance and disrespect
by a customer, I finish the job and become no longer available to them.

I really liked the guy and gave him the benefit of the doubt the whole way
along. When he said he'd come by (meaning I had to stay home) and then didn't
and didn't call, and repeated this behavior a half dozen times, it was time to
fire him.

The Daring Dufas wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Most of the techs I worked with were skinny from the exercise they
got at work. I worked in two TV shops. One while I was in jr. high
school, and another right after I graduated. Did you ever have to move
one of those eight foot wide Zenith TVs with a solid slate top? They
had warning labels that it needed six people because of the weight. An
old man named Dave and I loaded and unloaded several by ourselves.

It's all about leverage. 8-)


Definately. We didn't have power lift gates and those girly hand
trucks back then.


--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.

Steve wrote:

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote in message
m...

wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Maybe, if the company is run by idiots. We had a fleet of trucks,
equipped for different brands

HVAC don't work like that. You don't schedule your work by
'what brands of equipment are waiting for service'.


That's one of the reasons the work is so inefficient. One would
think that the building permit would list the equipment being installed,
and that information be available from the county. Hell, if they keep
track of the size of your septic tank and drain field, they should do
the same for the HVAC equipment for tax purposes.

I don't know what country your living in, but in these parts, unless your
inside the city limits of a major city, there is no code enforcement, and
most small towns don't want to even take your money for a permit unless you
had to shut off power to the building..... and then the inspector job is a
brother-in-law thing.


I live in Florida. Any electrical work done by any contractor
requires a permit, due to the high number of sleazy contractors that
move here to rip people off.


--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.

The Daring Dufas wrote:

On 9/28/2010 12:19 PM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:

The Daring Dufas wrote:

On 9/28/2010 7:27 AM, HeyBub wrote:
Stormin Mormon wrote:
My experience with smokers has not been good. I prefer not to work
with them. Of course, my allergies help make that decision.


You can get shots to alleviate your allergies.



You can also shoot a smoker in the head. 8-)


I worked with a bunch of idiots who would all light up by the return
vent and fill the entire shop& office area with smoke. I opened the
register and saturated the filter with Lysol. They came in the next
morning and light up As soon as they took a deep breath, they were
coughing and gagging. ;-)


I smoked for 9 months then I was born. People didn't know any better
back in the middle of the last century. Instead of a snot nosed kid,
I was a green slime kid. I'm deathly allergic to tobacco smoke and
can tell if the driver in the car in front of me on the freeway is
smoking without seeing them. If I go into a place full of smokers,
my sinuses close up and my eyes water. Heck. it's like pepper spray
to me. Some people are polite and understanding about it (friends)
and many are jerks about it (enemas). 8-)


I've had people tell me, 'You're not my freind if I can't smoke in
your house.' I tell them goodbye, and don't bother to come back.


--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.

AZ Nomad wrote:

I really liked the guy and gave him the benefit of the doubt the whole way
along. When he said he'd come by (meaning I had to stay home) and then didn't
and didn't call, and repeated this behavior a half dozen times, it was time to
fire him.


Definitely!


--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.

wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

One would
think that the building permit would list the equipment being installed,
and that information be available from the county. Hell, if they keep
track of the size of your septic tank and drain field, they should do
the same for the HVAC equipment for tax purposes.

Bwahahahaha ! ;-)

What pray tell 'tax' is there on AC equipment ?


It affects your property tax. Anyone except a HVAC lackey knows
that.


Yes, building codes require certain equipment 'efficiencies' these
days. But not anything like 'a listing of installed equipment'. And
would YOU trust YOUR local guv for that info as part of your business
model?


Sigh. They have more information on you than you know, unless you
"Live in a van, 'Down by the river!'"

In some places they want the information to know what kind of loads
to expect on the local power grid. A freind works at WPAFB near
Dayton. They have to call the utilites before they turn on some of
their large equipment to prevent a major power failure in the region.


What do you think you have to do during survival training? You sure

Personally - watch it on the Discovery Channel :-).


IOW, you are too much of a wimp to go through it. Uncle didn't give
me a choice, and there was no satellite TV back then. That is, other
than when the TV stations in Fairbanks rented an earth station to carry
the world series. It may have been the first use, outside of the big
three networks.


as hell can't wait three or four days to get to a bathroom. You had
some 25 year old C-rations, a folding shovel, a tent half and SIX
matches. You had to make a shelter, build a fire and not end up dead.
Training didn't start till they were sure that the daytime temp wouldn't
be above -20 during the test. Also, the 0% humidity was hell on your
skin. It would dry out and crack, then bleed.

Sounds like a typical service call, eh ? :-)


How often do you sleep under a layer of snow on a service call? Or
wear insulated boots that weigh about 10 pounds?


--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.

wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

I had a customer tell me that I had to use the rear door to service a
TV that was less than six feet from the front door, 'because all service
people use the back door'. I told her that I didn't have time for her
stupid games, but would play along, as long as she agreed to pay for a
second service call, since the other door was a second location. She
got mad and said, You can't talk to me that way. I shrugged and said,

"You aint' seen squat ****ing all YET, bitch' ? Just a
guess ....


No. I don't work in HVAC. I was firm, but polite.


--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.

wrote:

On Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:19:16 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


The Daring Dufas wrote:

On 9/28/2010 7:27 AM, HeyBub wrote:
Stormin Mormon wrote:
My experience with smokers has not been good. I prefer not to work
with them. Of course, my allergies help make that decision.


You can get shots to alleviate your allergies.



You can also shoot a smoker in the head. 8-)


I worked with a bunch of idiots who would all light up by the return
vent and fill the entire shop & office area with smoke. I opened the
register and saturated the filter with Lysol. They came in the next
morning and light up As soon as they took a deep breath, they were
coughing and gagging. ;-)

Bull****. You got the airflow wrong.


Who said it was running? You assume too much, as usual. It didn't
come on till later in the day at that time of the year.


--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.

wrote:

On Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:19:43 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


wrote:

On Tue, 28 Sep 2010 07:27:24 -0500, "HeyBub"
wrote:

Stormin Mormon wrote:
My experience with smokers has not been good. I prefer not to work
with them. Of course, my allergies help make that decision.


You can get shots to alleviate your allergies.


But you can't fix stupid.


That doesn't mean you have to elect them.

Apparently, in this country, it does :-(


Not if you try really hard. Weed out the worst deadwood first, and
keep trimming away at the dead branches.


--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.

wrote:

On Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:28:42 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


wrote:

On Mon, 27 Sep 2010 23:15:03 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


wrote:

On Mon, 27 Sep 2010 20:08:55 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

No kidding. I've worked 20 hour days to get a job done on time, rather
than make return trips.

Then you're an idiot.


Yawn. Exactly what I'd expect from some lazy ass like you. A good
customer has an emergency. They offer to pay for the overtime, so you
sk the crew if they want the work. When they say yes, you do the job.
Some where scheduled, but waiting for all the parts to arrive before we
started the job.

Fine. That's not what you said. You said 'rather than make
return trips', which is bull****.

And if you want to talk 'extreme' - I've had compressors (
there was exactly one in existence in the country ) flown in overnight
on a chartered Lear jet, met at the airport by a truck, driven to the
jobsite where a crane and crew and me were waiting at 6 AM.

When a cleanroom costs $ 50,000 / hour in downtime, you don't
**** around, or worry about the chump change.


Whine, whine whine. $50,000? Big deal.

I talked a scientist in Antarctica through a repair procedure on a
piece of equipment they had damaged to keep them from losing data on a
two year project.

I built a KU band communications system that is a permanent part of
the International Space Station. It is used for voice, video and data
uplinks. The downlink was done with some of our standard equipment, but
the ISS only has 48 VDC power and the equipment has to be built into one
of their fancy low G aluminum rack modules.

I built the earth station that NOAA uses to control their LEO (Low
Earth Orbit) weather satellites, and to receive the weather sat photos.

I built two earth stations for Italy, for their part in the European
Space Agency. One fixed site, the other in an european style military
trailer.

Yeh, well I built the Alaskan pipeline, the space station, and
the Large Hadron Collider, in between managing Barack Obama's campaign
( Axlerod and Plouffe were my sock-puppets ).


No, you didn't.

Did so.

Yawn...............................


However, I worked for Microdyne and was involved in
all those projects.

Yah, right. Why didn't I see your name on the personel
reports ?


Right. You can't even get the word right. You don't even know
'where' I worked, or what years.



--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.

wrote:

On Tue, 28 Sep 2010 15:04:50 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:

I've had people tell me, 'You're not my freind if I can't smoke in
your house.' I tell them goodbye, and don't bother to come back.

Yep. You've actually been told that? Geez, how rude. And
this from a smoker myself.


I repaired CB radios as a sideline to my commercial two way radio
business for a short time. It was idiots like that why I stopped. They
also wanted me to do illegal mods, but anyone who asked was shown the
door and told to leave.


I know walking into a place if they smoke or not, and if they
don't, I don't ( inside ). No need to ask anything.


The rosin smoke was bad enough but I grew up with parents who smoked,
and the odor makes me quite ill.


--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.

And give up McDonalds drive throughs?

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"The Daring Dufas" wrote in message
...

My dream is to own one of those Sprinter vans, they're nice.

TDD

Where was this? And what did they do with all that ordinance?

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"The Daring Dufas" wrote in message
...

It was Heliax but it went to a tower from a high power transmitter. I
don't know what size it was, I got the story second hand from the comm
techs. Our backhoe operator hit a high pressure water line on another
island and he was digging where he was shown. There was so much stuff
underground there that the permanent staff didn't know where it all
was.
We found the skeletons of Japanese soldiers and live ammunition all
over
the place. The island has an EOD unit stationed there because of it.

TDD

Much the same, here. My parents smoked till I was maybe 5 or 6.
Everyone smoked, bakc then.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"The Daring Dufas" wrote in message
...

I smoked for 9 months then I was born. People didn't know any better
back in the middle of the last century. Instead of a snot nosed kid,
I was a green slime kid. I'm deathly allergic to tobacco smoke and
can tell if the driver in the car in front of me on the freeway is
smoking without seeing them. If I go into a place full of smokers,
my sinuses close up and my eyes water. Heck. it's like pepper spray
to me. Some people are polite and understanding about it (friends)
and many are jerks about it (enemas). 8-)

TDD

Half dozen? That's forgiving. For me, two or maybe three would have
been the end.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"AZ Nomad" wrote in message
...


It's all about how you treat folks. I don't mistreat anyone and I
will
not tolerate being mistreated for any amount of money. I fire a few
customers every year. If I'm ever treated with arrogance and
disrespect
by a customer, I finish the job and become no longer available to
them.

I really liked the guy and gave him the benefit of the doubt the whole
way
along. When he said he'd come by (meaning I had to stay home) and
then didn't
and didn't call, and repeated this behavior a half dozen times, it was
time to
fire him.

Reminds me of a guy I knew. I gave him a ride to the shopping mall. On
two consecutive days. Need I say, it was my gas and oil. He didn't
offer me a penny for expenses. I rather don't like malls. park out in
deep space, walk forever. Wait forver for him to finish his slowpoke
shopping. So, he wants to go again that day. I said no. His
reply......

"I don't know how long I can put up with you being like this."

I should have walked out at that instant. I didn't. Things never got
better.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"Michael A. Terrell" wrote in message
news
I've had people tell me, 'You're not my freind if I can't smoke in
your house.' I tell them goodbye, and don't bother to come back.


--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there
is
enough left over to pay them.

Well, you got me puzzled. How did spraying the return filter affect
the smokers?

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


"Michael A. Terrell" wrote in message
m...

I worked with a bunch of idiots who would all light up by the
return
vent and fill the entire shop & office area with smoke. I opened the
register and saturated the filter with Lysol. They came in the next
morning and light up As soon as they took a deep breath, they were
coughing and gagging. ;-)

--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there
is
enough left over to pay them.

Stormin Mormon wrote:

Reminds me of a guy I knew. I gave him a ride to the shopping mall. On
two consecutive days. Need I say, it was my gas and oil. He didn't
offer me a penny for expenses. I rather don't like malls. park out in
deep space, walk forever. Wait forver for him to finish his slowpoke
shopping. So, he wants to go again that day. I said no. His
reply......

"I don't know how long I can put up with you being like this."

I should have walked out at that instant. I didn't. Things never got
better.


Most people were afraid to ride with me in the stepvan, since they
only have a single seat. The idea od stitting on a hot metal plate
quickly cured that. It was so warm that I dove over an hour to work one
day with a fresh baked apple pie sitting on the floor. It was still
steaming when I removed the aluminum foil at work.


--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.

Dammit Paul, quit feeding the trolls!!

Stormin Mormon wrote:

Well, you got me puzzled. How did spraying the return filter affect
the smokers?


They were smoking before their shift started, nd the unit wasn't
running yet. They were sitting a couple feet from it, but didn't smell
it, because they had already had a couple cigarettes on their way to
work. It wasn't till they took a deep puff on their cigarettes that
they got a lung full of nicotine & Lysol. They went running to the boss
to complain, even though there were no smoking signs all over the
place. The boss told me to stop, but I told him the next time I would
call corporate headquarters and the state labor board.

It was at lunchtime & the end of the day that they sat there with it
running. We had a second system that cooled the headend, and it ran
year round.


--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.

Steve wrote:

Dammit Paul, quit feeding the trolls!!


He is the troll, on RCM.


--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.

On 9/28/2010 8:27 AM, HeyBub wrote:
Stormin Mormon wrote:
My experience with smokers has not been good. I prefer not to work
with them. Of course, my allergies help make that decision.


You can get shots to alleviate your allergies.



We've had this discussion before. Just like with cats or whatever, any
competent allergist will tell you the BEST solution is to avoid the
material that triggers it. You muck with your body chemistry at your
peril. Either ongoing courses of drugs that have other effects, or
desensitization routines that sometimes make you allergic to other stuff.

--
aem sends...

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
Stormin Mormon wrote:

Yes, I can imagine that being easier to work on. One of my regular gas
and go customers has a walk in refrigerator. Naturally, it leaks at
the nut for the TXV. The folks who designed the cooler allowed about
two inches from the end of the evap to the wall. I get to tighten the
nut while standing on crates of soda pop, and balancing a miror,
wrench, minimag, and trying to not fall.



If the job was easy, anyone could do it! ;-)

I would have traded you jobs back in the '70s when I had to stand
inside TV transmitter in full operation to adjust the interstage
coupling. Nothing like standing on a 3 KV power supply with a fault
current in excess of 10KA while bending the wire loops with a piece of
nylon rod.



Easy, just keep your non-dominant hand in your back pocket. G

Jeff

--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
The speed of light is 1.8*10e12 furlongs per fortnight.

Rich Grise wrote:

On Sat, 25 Sep 2010 17:45:23 -0400, Stormin Mormon wrote:


Some decades ago, I heard the same joke. But it was a steam locomotive,
and two taps for buck each. Knowing, $998.

A locksmith I knew. Got a rush call to open a car, guy had to be to the
airport. Having opened several of those, the locksmith knew which tool,
how far into the window, and in which direction to go. As he was reaching
into the car to recover the keys, the guy hollered. "Forty bucks! I'm not
going to pay you forty bucks... for.... THAT!!!"

Locksmith threw the keys back in, and started to walk off. After some
begging, the locksmith relented, and opened the car a second time. Now,
the bill is up to $80. Me, I am not that heartless.


I once had a girlfriend who had custody of a 16-year old kid, whose dad
bought him a brand-new pickup truck, as an abseentee parent bribe or
whatever. He locked his keys in it. We called a locksmith, who was an
off-duty cop, and went out to watch him pick the lock. The guy was
poking around and poking around, and we kind of got lost in conversation;
we had wanted to see him pick the lock. Well, after about 10 minutes of
this, we were all thoroughly distracted, he said, "Well, it doesn't seem
to be working here - let me try the other side." Before any of us clued
up and thought to chase him to the other side of the truck, he had the
lock picked in about three seconds.

I was rather saddened that I didn't get to see how it was done. )-;

Thanks,
Rich



Didja ever think that maybe the other side was UNlocked already? G

Jeff

--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
The speed of light is 1.8*10e12 furlongs per fortnight.