I been guilty of neglecting my blog in recent times so I thought I should just sit down and write something.

I changed jobs recently. I used to work at Zerve as a PHP programmer and now I work for another company as a Java programmer. Since my new employer is in Brooklyn I conveniently moved to Brooklyn to be closer to work. So far I like the new job. Technically the job is pretty easy with normal working hours. When I get home there is time to think about other big ideas.

The cable company. I don't have much good to say except that it all works now finally. Cablevision should really invest in the training of their technicians. But not even so much as training as at least develop proper installation procedures. The executives at this company should read this as a case study to use to fix some basic problems with their customer service.

There was no reason that 3 visits by their technicians had to happen when it all could have been done in the first installation visit. For some reason the cabling in my apartment building was done improperly by the original contractors who installed it years ago. At least that is what one of their guys told me which I thought was a smooth way to blame someone else. "Oh it was not us it was the contractor" -- like that makes a difference.

In any case the original guys who done the cabling years ago crimped the cable going to my apartment incorrectly in no less then two places. Tech 1 who was doing the installation, hooked up to the bad cable coming into the apartment. He did not check the signal strength nor did he bother to even bring the checker device they all have. After confirming that the TV did turn on and that some channels worked, he just left. Had he did his signal check or even bothered to note that one of the crimps on the cable outside my window was done poorly he could have went ahead and fixed the cable. Not surprisingly I found some channels did not work some of the time. After a lot of wasted time on the phone I had the second tech come over. Tech 2 also failed to see the bad crimping job outside my window but assumed that the problem is probably at the other end of cable around the building. He replaced the crimp on the cable around the building saying it was a bad contracting job. He at least tested the signal after the fix and said it was bare minimum. Some time later I found my cable completely not working. I gave an angry call to tech support and scheduled another appointment. A short time later I discover that the crimp outside my window has failed and the cable was completely dislodged. In any case the 3rd guy fixed that problem. I don't see why all this trouble could not have been avoided has the original tech done some preventative maintenance and fixed the cabling. Also none of the two technicians who knew there was bad wiring in the building made any attempt to fix all the remaining badly crimped cables for the rest of the tenants. I mean why bother doing it now when they can come countless times over in the future to fix these same problems later?