Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/12/14/comcast-repairman-doesnt-giv.html
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4 Likes
I see an appointment to Trump’s FCC in that Comcast guy’s future.
51 Likes
Man that was infuriating to watch. Freaking hilljacks!
3 Likes
I wonder if it ever occurred to the clueless repair guy to ask one of the nearby houseowners if it was okay if they parked in their drive for a couple of hours. Waiting for one of the passing cars to skid out and plow into the rear end of the truck; it looks like they mostly decided that the ditch was better.
4 Likes
It’s clear that none of you have had to go without cable for an hour or two. Those cars running off the road are perfectly acceptable, so long as I can keep watching the Storage Wars marathon for the 12th time.
42 Likes
not to completely side with the Comcast contractor, but a big part of it is that people drive like jackholes in icy weather. Just keep driving as fast as you would on dry pavement. Why else did you buy that expensive 4-wheel drive vehicle? Hell! Drive (and brake) even FASTER!
If the guy shooting the video really gave a shit, he’d go do something to warn drivers, rather than trying to shame the (admittedly douchey) worker. I’ve left my own road flares when stranded motorists didn’t have anything to leave sufficient warning. They’re like a buck fifty per.
28 Likes
The first guy explicitly said he wanted his truck in the road between his tuchas and cars driving too damn fast on a slippery road. I get that, I do, but the harm reduction here is to re-schedule the freaking job.
14 Likes
He suggests the repair guy park in front of his house right at the start.
Doesn’t he go and put out his own personal cones in the video?
27 Likes
At some slight risk of unpopularity, I think this is a case of people driving too fast for the conditions, and, seemingly, not knowing how to drive on slippery roads. They are simply not allowing enough stopping distance.
The Comcast guy is not very bright, to say the least, but he’s demonstrating how many people are not fit to be in charge of nearly three tons of metal on a highway.
Mind you, over here idiots park all over the place even on icy roads - we have a Darwinian approach to driving skill tests.
28 Likes
Comcast should have had guys flagging well up the road. The man who made the video put out some of his own road markers but flaggers would have made a big difference.
12 Likes
to be fair, he might get terminated if he doesn’t “get the job done”. what would you do?
–i wouldn’t work for Cramcrap in the first place, so for me it’s just a hypothetical.
3 Likes
Call the cops to direct traffic? I mean, I highly doubt Comcast or Utility workers know all the best ways to block off roads. I imagine they have guidelines, probably even following laws (sounds like that one guy knew the amount of cones needed per regulations, unless that is policy.) The problem is the problem they are fixing is near a hill. This is compounded by bad weather and people driving too fast in it. So some times regulation isn’t going to be the best solution in all cases.
If this had been a couple cars that had wrecked earlier and blocking off that lane (which seems to be why they are out there on the first place), there would STILL be the same issue, only one can’t really snarkily blame anyone.
No, they can’t park in a drive way for 2 reasons - 1) the truck is there for some protection and 2) they are having to use the bucket on it.
8 Likes
He did. Looks like he put out more – and definitely bigger, more visible, and over a greater distance – warning markers than the Comcast guy did.
The idea that 5 small cones ‘spread out’ over a distance of about 2 truck-lengths just past the crest of a hill during a winter storm is legally following the minimum requirement and therefore Good Enough is maddening.
25 Likes
If this road is a mess, lots of other roads are a mess, and I’m guessing the cops are overloaded. Not even a tow truck available either.
I love this reason- the truck is needed as protection from the people that are trying to avoid the truck being in the way. (trucks all the way down!)
7 Likes
We’d like to offer you a job.
Great, what do I have to do?
Endanger people’s safety to ensure the delivery of unreliable cable service.
Bye, good luck with that.
Well, it was good enough to keep the Comcast trucks from getting hit, which is all they seemed to care about. The Comcast employee was pretty clear that the other motorists’ safety was irrelevant to him. Were they taking the hill too fast for the weather? Yeah, sure looked like it. But if you’re on a road where everyone is doing that, it’s reckless not to plan for it. To be sure, I’d blame Crapcom’s poor training and safety policies, which are probably as shitty as their service, before I’d blame the workers (though they were willing participants who clearly didn’t even care enough to put extra cones out).
7 Likes
Yeah, but they got a job to do.
“I’m sorry sir that your service is down, but it is snowing and slushy. We will be out to fix it in a couple of days when it’s nicer.”
ETA- I can’t believe I am defending Comcast…
9 Likes
This was the sticky point for me. The 2nd Comcastard (Comcast + bastard) said it was one cone per 10 mph for the roadway, but that’s for ideal conditions with perfect visibility and traction.
If you tell a cop that you drove the speed limit on an icy road with low visibility, he’ll give you a ticket for driving too fast and unsafely for the road conditions. The same concept should applied to the signage here.
26 Likes
I wonder if the guy shooting the video ever bothered to call in the road condition with the police, I’m guessing not
6 Likes
I’m sure the police noticed it was snowing. Victim blaming.
6 Likes
As others have said, it was probably just as bad elsewhere, but he focused on the cause of the issue (the Comcast guys making bad decisions) and tried to make a difference (by putting out his own signage) rather than wait for cops to eventually get out there. If he’d been successful in convincing the Comcast guys to do something more or something different, that would have solved the issue.
6 Likes
