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I agree with this guy. And I cant believe the sorry excuses people make for these installers. Many of you are installers yourselves who obviously have no respect for others' property. You want to take the easy way out and get home.

I dont care what the back end arrangement is. I dont care how much you're getting paid, etc. complain to your boss or dish, not me. I'm paying for service and if they cannot respect this or adhere to what needs I have, you can get lost. I'll find another installer OR SERVICE who will do it without destroying my home.

This all said, you should not have signed that agreement and filed a complaint.

frustrated_guy said:

Nobody probably cares, but I'm so fed up with these "installs". I had a family member have a seemingly simple install today. I've had too many bad experiences in the past, so I made sure I was there to supervise. These idiots were the worst I've ever seen. First, they argued against putting the dish were I told them because it would mean they'd have to run more cable. About 50 feet on top of the 25 feet to the place they wanted. Oh boo-hoo.The install should have been simple. There were four SDTV's. Two 322's. The first room was over a concrete floor, so they diplexed the backfeed through the original cable. There was already a phone jack, so they used that. Perfect. No complaints there.Then comes to the second 322 location. The hardwood floors in this room were only three months old. There was a basement under this room. The TV was on a shelf in the corner, and directly behind it was an outlet and phone jack I had wired when the house was built about 7 years ago. The guy wanted to run a second cable for backfeed. I said no, and he said it was company policy to do so. I told him that there were to be no new cables run, as I did not want any more holes in the wood paneled walls or brand new hardwood floors. I even had the homeowner say no.Reluctantly, the guy agreed, so I went off to the other room for a minute. About 30 seconds later I hear a drill. Guess what. The guy is drilling through the hardwood floor. He wants to then staple a cable to the wall up to the shelf.I about had it right there. I told him absolutely under no circumstance was he to drill through the floor.Now Dish is going to get the bill for the $500 or so it's going to cost to repair the floor.And the install was just plain messy. He ran the cables right along the house's siding. I asked him to run them at the top edge under the eaves. You think he did? Nope.And he was smoking in my backyard. This may be getting anal, but the homeowner does not allow anyone to smoke on their property. What kind of professional conduct is it to smoke right next to the house?Behind each TV was a wire's nest. Took me an hour to straighten up what he left. And he didn't set up either of the UHF 2 remotes. Just left them in the room.I just want to self install it next time. Maybe I'll buy all the equipment so I can do that. Does D* allow self installs?

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You ave a legitimate beef in some respects..The tech should have followed your wishes and not drilled into the floor..It is not company policy to avoid diplexers....That was a lie. I am going to assume that there was a cable already in place where the "other" receiver location..I can't figure out why anyone would deliberately run cable when it is not neceessary. It could have been that he ran out of diplexers. His problem..He shopuld have been prepared to do his job..
Now I will let you in on something..The first mistake you made was "supervising"..Your apporval of the job was enough..Hovering over the tech is a very bad idea..How would you like it if a layman hovered over you at your job?..Not a pleasant thought, is it?
Running cables neatly on the siding is standard operating procedre done on millions of installs...It is not your right to tell the tech how to do his job..We are allowed certain pathways to route cable as long as the cable is neat, follows the lines of the home and is not in anyway damaging to the home..It appears running the siding fit all these criteria....Smoking..If you wished there to be no smoking on the property you should have made that clear in the pre install part of the job..Placement of the dish. I survey the site and determine the best place fo the dish..I like to give the customer options for aesthetic reasons..But let's say the customer would like the dish at the peak of his 12/12 pitch roof when the lower corner behind the house will do, he isn't going to get his install done..Not by me anyway..I will no do anything that is remotely hazardous to my health..Now if it's a case of the customer being reasonable and wanting the dish in a desired location and i have to run more cable(again reasonable) that's fine..It's their house. I want them to be happy with the work.
This is one of those cases where i must defend my profession..We are indeed professionals..although judging from some of the comments by customers posted on this board there seems to be a consensus that we are a bunch of no good SOB's who are simply out to make a buck, have no clue what we are doing, are you hired help for the day or just plan not to be trusted..Look, there plenty of good people in this business. If you got a bad one that is bad luck on your part. I wish you well. But please do not imply that we all have no idea what we are doing.
BTW if you plan on getting $500 for a 3/8th inch hole, have fun....If we make a mistake and damage something we will make good on the damage..For example, if it was us that drilled the hole against your wishes we will gladly find contractors to give esteimates on the repair..We will make an offer to and even provide the contractor to do the job..But I will tell you right off, unless you have a very capable civil attorney who doesn't mind wasting his time on small fry suits, you're not going to get $500....In this business it happens al the time. We are prepared...

darrencp22 said:

I agree with this guy. And I cant believe the sorry excuses people make for these installers. Many of you are installers yourselves who obviously have no respect for others' property. You want to take the easy way out and get home.

I dont care what the back end arrangement is. I dont care how much you're getting paid, etc. complain to your boss or dish, not me. I'm paying for service and if they cannot respect this or adhere to what needs I have, you can get lost. I'll find another installer OR SERVICE who will do it without destroying my home.

This all said, you should not have signed that agreement and filed a complaint.

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Trust me none of us would want to come to your home if you paid us triple..not with that attitude..
Where is it written that we have to come to your home take a a bunch of crap from you?..God help the next service person that comes to your home.

I hate to stir the pot...but you're being extremely hypocritical now. You're generalizing customers just like you are telling customers not to generalize installers.

I have to say the OP has a point. Although not every installer is bad, there are some who are.

Andrewwski said:

I hate to stir the pot...but you're being extremely hypocritical now. You're generalizing customers just like you are telling customers not to generalize installers.

I have to say the OP has a point. Although not every installer is bad, there are some who are.

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Not true..All these things I described are examples(rare but true) that I have experienced in 10 years of this...99% of all customers are just fine. Thye want he owrk done and they are excited to get the product. I stay in this business becuase of the satisfaction I get from doing a good job and pleasing the customer. I know whatit is like to get poor customer service.I go iut of my to give the customer a good experience.

Of course there are bad installers. The OP started this by making the first ill advised generalization.

I agrea, even though I have walked into homes where the carpet stuck to the bottom of my boots like syrup with each step or the air was so thick with the amonia odor from the lack of cat litter box changes over a two year period or the packrats that have every newspaper and insert for the last 20 years piled up to the ceiling in every room of the house along with everything else that they have never thrown away the majority of customers have been tolerable to downright angelic in some cases but just as you will find some bad techs you will also find the same when it comes to you the customer but heres the flip. In these forums your going to find that all of us both past and present installers / techs / specialists or what ever we are given as titles are the ones who actually do take the responsibility of making sure that you home looks the same if not better than when we showed up wether your home looks like something out of animal cops Detroit at a collectors home or borders on the kings summer home so when someone starts making some really idiotic comments lumping us into the same boat then there it should be expected that some will get vocal.

The thing that you as the customer need to remember is that we are there to install a service / repair a service / upgrade a service and educate you on how to use the system, we are not there to hold your hand, we are not there to listen to your life story, we are not there to satisfy your perversions, we are not there to watch your kids, we are not there to clean your house, we are not there to anything other than what we are supposed to do ( take note those who are installers and reading this as there are things you need to do ) so when you have an installation or some other service call for your system keep in mind as to what we are there to do and what we are not there to do.

The majority of us ar proffesional however if you feel that the person(s) that has shown up at your home are not acting in a proffesional manner then you have the right to ask us to leave and call your service provider and request a diferent person and please be sure to tell them of your concern.

Technicians, you as the proffesional are there to do a job wether its an install, service call, trouble call, upgrade, or mover and to educated the customer on the use of the sytem or new product, anything else as mentioned above is not part of your job and you are not getting paid for it so dont do it. If a customer seems to be unstable or hostile you have the right to refuse the job and leave, if the home is a biological hazard you can refuse the job and leave.

Customers you can schedule your appointment for any day of the week after the first available day, just keep in mind that not all weekend days are available and there are no special times that can be promised so if you ask for 7pm dont count on it specialy if your wanting 4 rooms hooked up and the installer has finished his second to last job at 5pm. Service times are 8am to 12 noon and 12 noon to 5pm, there is always the possibility that if you have a morning appointment the tech may not make it by noon, if its a pm appointment then he may not make it by 5, each job site is diferent and theres always the potential for unforseen issues.

dishcomm said:

BTW if you plan on getting $500 for a 3/8th inch hole, have fun....If we make a mistake and damage something we will make good on the damage..For example, if it was us that drilled the hole against your wishes we will gladly find contractors to give esteimates on the repair..We will make an offer to and even provide the contractor to do the job..But I will tell you right off, unless you have a very capable civil attorney who doesn't mind wasting his time on small fry suits, you're not going to get $500....In this business it happens al the time. We are prepared...

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I agree. I have insurance, and I pay them to fight for me. I stepped through a ceiling and it didn't cost $500, and that was a BIG hole. My insurance company had it taken care of in less than a week and a half, too, and I promise you they didn't get ripped off my any irish traveller "handyman" types. Blending in a ceiling has to be harder than blending in a floor behind a TV. I would not have drilled that hole, though.

I don't see what the big deal is about smoking. OP didn't mention if he had specifically told them not to smoke. Plus, they were doing it outside, so I have no idea what they could have bothered by smoking. Surely the petunias didn't mind, did they?

I wouldn't have minded if they were smoking outside, but they better not have been withing 20 feet of my residence or put their cigarette on the ground.

Still, it's definitely not good buisness practice. The OP should not have had to tell them not to smoke. If you're expecting a professional to come to your house, you don't expect him to smoke in front of you.

Someone once told me "smokers don't realize what non-smokers think of smoking."

dishcomm said:

Trust me none of us would want to come to your home if you paid us triple..not with that attitude..
Where is it written that we have to come to your home take a a bunch of crap from you?..God help the next service person that comes to your home.

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I always hated when they called and told me to go to an "irate" customer's house. Don't tell me that. They are rarely mad when I get there, and you are shading my opinion of them prior to me actually meeting them. I had an old dude one time that really was all pissed. He couldn't find TNN on his new DTV system, and I couldn't find it with him yelling at me. So I told him I would go sit in my truck for 5 minutes and when I was ready, I would knock on the door and we would start over. The plan was if he didn't calm down, I would be leaving without helping him. In the meantime, I found TNN on the channel card. This was when they were calling themselves The National Network, just having switched from The Nashville Network. it wasn't listed under TNN or Nashville or National. It was under THE. WTF is up with that I will never know, but it can be impossible to think straight when some geezer is about to have a coronary over something stupid.

Anyway, his wife got him calmed down, and I went through my intro just as if the earlier incident had never happened. I even sat with them a spell. When it was time to go, I reintroduced myself and told them what a pleasure it had been to spend some time with them. The look on their faces was priceless! Anyway, they really were nice people, the old guy just had a bug up his rump!

Mean drunks are the worst. I'll leave an abusive customer's house in a heartbeat.