Greed. More, more, more!

 When I began working in the schools in the mid-90's in rural Ohio, we (my organization) set up the Internet for schools in several surrounding counties.  A telephone company was called to install a 56k line and I would connect the appropriate equipment to that biscuit (the little phone jack on the wall) and the school network.

I would arrive at the school and being polite and somebody who followed the rules I would wait in the office until the telephone worker arrived, then we would go to the wiring closet and complete the connection. That was how it was supposed to work.

I was at one such location and after waiting an hour, I called my home office.  They said they would look into it and call me back.  They called me back and said the phone guy had been there and gone.  I was like "How? I've sat here all morning and I didn't see him."  If you are a visitor at a school you are to sign in at the front office.  

Come to find out, the telephone guy had snuck in the back door (schools were not yet locked down), went to the closet (also not locked back then), installed his biscuit and left.  He never bothered signing into the office.  The telephone company was not worried about breaking the rules. They were the only game in town.  Corporate American greed had seen to that.

Situations like this were not uncommon in my early years of working in this environment.  I also came to find out that the phone guy did not like other people around when they worked.  Know why?  Because they never did it right the first time.  Never!  I would go, install my equipment and nothing worked.  The phone guy had to come back.  I thought either their job must be really difficult or they hired a bunch of bozos.

Until I caught up with one.  It was a Wednesday afternoon and this was the second or third time he had to come back to make the connection.  He bragged "I've already got my 40 hours in and it's only Wednesday!  Everything from here on out is overtime!"  He almost sang it.

Sadly, later that day it hit me.  They did this on purpose.  They did it wrong so they would have to be called back out however many times so they could build up their hours and make more money in overtime.  I didn't get overtime. I was a salaried employee.  I had to drive out to the site every time only to find out the connection did not work.  Tax payers paid my mileage (through my state organization).

It was an eye opener and a depressing one.  The phone company did not hire bozos and the job itself was simple enough if you knew what you were doing.  No, they hired greedy workers.  I need more, more and more!  More money, bigger house, a new boat, a nicer car! More stuff to put into my bigger house.  

Things changed.  After Columbine, schools began locking all their doors.  56k lines turned into T1 lines and then several T1 lines and then fiber.  The big Ma Bell was broken into several smaller Bells and competition improved the installation process a bit.  Not much, though. I left in the Spring of 2024.