"But I didn’t ask him that. I just stood and glared at him until he looked away. I needed the job. I assumed his kid would grow up to hate him."
Or hope that things work out and his father finds ways to love him more. This author seems a little angry. The more I read, the more I wondered if this was a normal account, or the account of someone who always seems to find themselves in strife.
But I can't say no to a peek under the sheets of people's lives. It fascinates me. I don't think I could do her job but I've always wanted just an afternoon where time freezes and I can lightly snoop on how a random assortment of people live (though realistically impossible without hurting others). Being a cable technician seems like a fair, legal alternative.
This is what being gay is like in America. It's a constant struggle deciding whether the conservatives in our lives are just deep in their cognitive dissonance or actively trying to sabotage us. It makes one angry after a while.
In the words of Anthony Oliveira, "the queers who were nice/patient/gentle all got shot or bullied to death all that's left r me & the other pissed-off cockroach motherfuckers".
You'll probably need to wait a generation or two, assuming the states don't fall into theocracy. The millennial queers I know are a lot more well-adjusted than us Gen X'ers.
The silent majority of bigots isn't abating though.
I just thought of a new conspiracy theory! The housing crisis is largely political and structural to zoning laws. A large part of the reason why forces to conspire to keep it going (because in practice its bad for everyone - rezoned higher density areas would sell for way more per unit of space to condo building developers than as single family dwellings, so both home owners and buyers are disadvantaged by it) is to abate the migration of youth into urban environments.
In perfect economics the cheapest place to live should be in the city - your per capita infrastructure costs are the lowest when density is the highest, and larger scale condo buildings are cheaper per tenant than single family housing by an order of magnitude. But because of draconian zoning law and NIMBYism cities are rapidly, way beyond the average, costing preposterous amounts of money to live in, and its a self perpetuating cycle - unmet demand for inward migration drives up prices and nothing is relieving that pressure.
So by keeping kids out of cities and stuck in their parents hometowns you can keep them isolated, bigoted, conservative. At least that seems to be what the hope is, and while some escape the ideology trap of small towns the majority of people who grow up there adhere strictly to their culture without deviation. So its probably working to slow the liberalization of the millennial generation.
> rezoned higher density areas would sell for way more per unit of space to condo building developers than as single family dwellings, so both home owners and buyers are disadvantaged by it
Sellers are disadvantaged by zoning. But it’s their neighbours who are the NIMBYs.
Or maybe its a chance for you to wonder why a gay woman might find themselves constantly frustrated and angry when living in a patriarchal homophobic society?
Would the same comment be applicable to other classes/races/sexes who have been and/or still are discriminated against? Would you say "learning to live with it is a good skill" to a straight white woman? An African-American man? A Jewish person? If the answer is no, investigate more closely the location of the fecal matter.
Living with abuse in its many wonderful forms is a skill that queer people learn early on. The ones who don't, wind up with obituaries that politely avoid stating how or where they died, and a closed-casket funeral.
She had this job for quite a while and so it seems like a very tiny assortment of unpleasant calls. Every friend I know who has worked facing the "general public" has similar grim stories.
There are really only four or five official gay bars here, most of which are in pretty close proximity to each other. So I guess this person wouldn’t be too hard to find if you barhopped over a few days based on the description in the article.
For some reason, this article has my bullshit meter on red-alert. Starting with cable "guy" when it's actually a lesbian, and it only gets worse from there.
Then about a quarter-way in, I get to this paragraph that just broke the needle:
Blue-collar customers were always my favorite. They don’t treat you like a servant. They don’t tell you, “We like the help to use the side door.” They don’t assume you’re an idiot just because you wear a name tag to work and your hands are calloused. The books on their shelves aren’t bound in leather. But the spines are cracked. Most of them, when you turn on the TV, it’s not set to Fox. They’re the only customers who tip.
It's just ideology! ideology! ideology! in the context of a service job where that rarely ever comes up.
With any luck, HuffPo will meet its own Peter Thiel sooner rather than later.
I'm inclined to agree. This sounds like a mostly fabricated Republican hit piece.
I clicked because I genuinely wanted to hear the tales to be told, but it seemed to focus more on Fox News than whatever point was being made.
The article is about having a shit job and what that experience is like. Having to deal with people who's politics have specifically targeted who you are for the past few decades is a part of that, so was being sexually harassed, treated like a servant, and forced to drive in unsafe conditions. Really, there was quite a lot in there that had little to do with politics.
> ...people who's politics have specifically targeted who you are for the past few decades
Are you assuming that blue-collar Republicans in red states have not been politically targeted based on "who they are"? Because the opposite is very much the case. There's a reason why people liked Bernie Sanders so much in the latest presidential elections
- he was the kind of older-generation leftist who did not pull this sort of elitist BS. Who knows, he might have had a chance.
Are you actually a queer person? I am. I've been all over the United States and find the idea that everyone wants to kill me to be ridiculous. The worst I've gotten are some "mean muggings" as in, people looking at me funny. Which is lame and doesn't feel good, but it's not the same as them wanting to kill me.
Screaming about how everyone wants to kill you is over the top and seems like emotional blackmail.
...and you're apparently being downvoted because there are more people on here who agree with the author's ideology than who disagree with it. Sad - speaking as someone who subscribes to neither the Right nor Left political leanings, I found your analysis spot-on.
Huffpo is an empty controversy mill. There would be less harm to society, and more cash in the worker-bees bank accounts, if they just closed-up shop and went on welfare.
I'd be willing to bet that the only reason the author can afford to write for huffpo is that she's already on disability.
I did not know that tipping the cable person was a thing. I also did not know this about hair stylists / barbers until my wife chastised me for not tipping. Lots of folks expect tips where I had no clue that was customary (probably because I grew up poor and never received services from anyone - cut our own hair, took care of all repairs, etc). I thought you just tipped wait-staff. As much as I dislike tipping, I do see better service from those who are looking for a tip. If you could tip phone support, I wonder what that would do for customer happiness when interacting with these folk...
In hindsight, I think tipping is what broke the needle. Never in my life have I heard of tipping the cable guy. If anything, I'd guess that the company strictly forbids accepting tips out of some wage-and-hour legal-bureaucratism.
Probably not much. As someone who has worked phone support, usually people get super jaded not because of the wages, but because some significant percentage of support calls are people being nasty right off the bat. It takes one bad call to kill your mood.
Not really surprising, it's the entitled, angry, nasty people who are most likely to call. The rest of us have realized that calling rarely produces results anyway and only bother to do it when there are no alternatives.
In general, you tip restaurant waiters, delivery, taxis, hotel concierges/housekeeping/bellhops, valet parking and coat check, bartenders, and spa/hair services. Things like cable installation or plumbers are not customarily tipped.
I've tipped cable installers (and I'm not a bluecollar worker) - I assume that anybody in service industry in principle can be tipped for providing excellent service. Painters, movers, furnace people, superintendant, anybody who can provide crappy, basic, or excellent service -- I want to support, reward and encourage excellent service.
I cannot tip the phone customer service reps, but if I get a really helpful one, I'll ask to speak to their supervisor and put a good word - for what little it may do.
In my mind, it's partly about showing gratitude, partially about encouraging behaviour we want to see (understanding that in terms of natural selection, I can tilt the outcome very little compared to the priorities and prerogatives of the company and management, who are typically at odds with me as a customer)
I am extremely dubious of most of the stories as well, but I think that they did work as a cable tech probably. The comments on having to piss hit very close to home even though I was a different blue collar worker for many years. I also am really close friends with a couple of cable techs and the cat piss soaked floor was an exact story they told me once. So there is a ring of truth here, but some of the encounters seem too ridiculous.
I found both the article and comments enlightening.
The article did not feel ideological/partisan/political in the least. Yet after reading comments and giving it a second look, I can absolutely, definitely see why it could be perceived that way.
Upon trying to examine my different reactions during reading and afterwards, I think it boils down to:
As a white straight white collar man - democrats, republicans, liberal, conservative, libertarian, etc - these are matters of ideology, perspective - choice.
If I were gay/lesbian as the author though, it's not ideology - it's people who actively wish you harm, and people who do not actively wish you harm. It's a matter of simple survival. Reading the article through the eyes of the lesbian forced to enter strange peoples' homes, I empathized.
I was once in a scientology church, went through exam, it was all fun and games until I realized were were two floors below ground and a man with shifty eyes, intense stare, and who couldn't take no for an answer, was between us and the room's door - and dozens more like him between us and safety of the outside.
Somewhat similarly, it feels like the author in each new home/environment has to quickly figure out who she's dealing with and act accordingly as a matter of survival. These folks I can be normal with. These folks think I'm an aberration and wish me harm. These are just creeps who want to rub on me.
I feel like that very rarely in my life - occasionally as an atheist at a public gathering in really enthusiastic prayer, or back when I was a refugee immigrant in a room full of entitled locals - but most of the time I'm just safe wherever I am. The author is not.
I'm queer as a three dollar bill and the sorts of people who you say "wish me harm" have never been anything except kind to me personally. Their political decisions at a macro level can be debated, but I think the LGBT community has a lot of growing up to do when it comes to pretending like everyone in America wants to kill us.
Just imagine an extreme homophobe visiting the homes of gay couples and seeing the worst in them. Wouldn't you suspect that the bad things they saw were ideological distortions in part (if not whole)? What you are reading in this article is something like that situation, only with the orientations reversed.
Considering we have a VP who very much hates gay people, various laws in place designed to hurt gay people incl. the fact that gay marriage is somehow still a debate in America?
I'd say you would have to be deliberately ignoring the politics of the time which are generally not friendly at all to members of the LGBT community. You're creating a situation which somehow equates the author sharing her experiences with homophobia to that of someone who is homophobic. It's a goddamn terrible analogy. Try again.
> fact that gay marriage is somehow still a debate in America?
Some people also think the Earth is flat. Does that mean that round Earthers are in imminent danger from them?
Being against gay marriage is a very low status belief that one can no longer hold openly in most of polite society. Aren't you satisfied? Does every single rural agricultural worker or person living under a bridge have to agree before you are safe?
> I'd say you would have to be deliberately ignoring the politics of the time which are generally not friendly at all to members of the LGBT community.
Quite contrary. My eyes are wide open. We live in the best time EVER to be gay. Gayness is openly celebrated in the most prosperous places in our society. It's only ridiculed in the dark corners.
> You're creating a situation which somehow equates the author sharing her experiences with homophobia to that of someone who is homophobic. It's a goddamn terrible analogy. Try again.
It absolutely isn't. I have seen time and time again in the gay community an outright phobia against heterosexuals who look or act traditionally straight. It's very unkind to judge people based on their external appearance or sexual preferences. I have learned from experience not to pre judge people. Mostly in that some of the best friends and allies I have are people who I'd have expected to be "bigots."
Kindness and openness towards others begets the same in return.
I'm not so sure, there is more than a grain of truth in it. Years ago after dropping-out of uni I ended up doing building work in the UK. Finding somewhere to have a pee was all consuming a lot of the time. I think it would have been terrible for a woman! If you were working on the exterior of a house you would almost never be offered the use of a toilet. In fact often you would be locked out.
Lots of middle-class customers seemed to relish having some 'help' for a day. Seemingly normal people turned into the 'Lord of the Manor' and talked to you like dirt. I found early on as a young and naive team member that clients would come and chat to me hoping to find some information to use against the boss. I could work at someone's house for 6 months and watch them avoid me in town a couple of months later.
I once finished work at a house and saw the owner was sat at a table on his lawn with guests. I walked over to say I was leaving, and the old guy dropped his drink and ran over to me all agitated. He didn't want to talk to me with guests there!
After hours I have had 'friends' I would chat too for a few weeks in the student pubs about literature or something. I'm no Will Hunting, but... I remember one week discussing mediaeval literature with a girl (who was interested that I knew some stories from the Mabinogian, an ancient Welsh text), who then found out I was a builder and said some unkind things and never spoke to me again.
One kind gent always had a cup of tea for us at his house, and kind words about our work, but actively avoided me in the street.
It really confused some of them years later to see me in my regulation pinstripe suit, they didn't know what to say! The fact that I had been a builder was a drag on my career for a while, even with a few years of office experience people still got strange about that on my CV. One former employer told me he nearly blocked my appointment for it without meeting me, and was pleased to admit he was wrong. I don't put it on my CV any more.
So yes people can be real a-holes about manual workers. Believe it.
Tipping is not really a big thing in the UK at all, so I can't help there.
I think we all accept that most people who have to deal directly with the public put up with a lot of garbage. That is the kernel of truth.
10 mentions of Fox News, having "Obama to hate," and the commentary on the bookshelves and exaggerated tippings of Joe Six-Pack seem a little embellished if you ask me.
edit: Maybe not even "embellished" as much as editorial bias--blowing some odd occurrence out-of-proportion while glossing over the mode.
It sure sounds like you have an axe to grind solely because the author explained their circumstances and experiences.
I don't doubt what she went through in the least, in particular because I've known and experienced the exact same hatred. And some people are going to face even more garbage than others solely based on their skin color or sexual orientation.
The author and publisher clearly have many axes to grind.
It's a highly politicized piece from HuffPo, designed for effect.
No doubt there's some credibility in the piece because it's based on a degree of real life experience, but it's also the most biased kind of writing possible as well, which gives it considerably less validity.
Sadly, if it were written in a more dispassionate tone, it mightn't have been published at all, and we'd have never seen it, which is maybe an important side lesson.
You're clearly not willing to address the article itself, instead you're intent on dismissing it for political reasons.
And of course it's going to be biased because individual experiences are biased. That doesn't make their experience any less interesting or valuable to understand because as it turns out, seeing things from all kinds of different perspectives is important for critical thinking and getting a larger picture.
Would you be so indignant about the article being dismissed if the negative stereotypes it anecdotally verified were focused on man hating social justice cat ladies or equality spouting yuppies who hypocritically abuse undocumented immigrants as cheap nannies and yard workers?
But the piece is inherently political; she uses each personal anecdote to generalize about a group of people, or at least point at that.
For every one of her anecdotes, I feel there was definitely 'another side of the story to tell'.
But I also don't blame her - as I mentioned, you don't get published without drawing a little bit of blood, which is sadly how it works in a lot of the press these days.
> Sadly, if it were written in a more dispassionate tone
That is kind of ironic isn't it? I don't spend a lot of time listening to Fox, but what I have heard has not been entirely dispassionate! In fact I have heard quite a few things that could be described as "highly politicized" and "designed for effect".
People pushed into working in jobs that are physically dangerous and pain inducing and discriminatory dare to get passionate about their situation...yikes, you think they would know their place.
I have no problems with people telling us about discrimination they may face, or their difficulties on the job
... but the author projected positive and negative attributes almost arbitrarily onto groups of people, based on some of 'her experience' - which is kind of a crude, self-selective bigotry.
Has zero to do with politics. Years ago, I did home networks.
Worked for myself, so granted, the social dynamics were a little different. Even so, 99 times out of 100, went inside, took their orders, took care of business, went home. No sex dungeons, no mafioso, a little cat pee (but not much), and absolutely no time or inclination to examine their bookshelves or the condition of book spines.
If she had made the grand-tour of right-wing talking-points instead, you probably wouldn't have quibbled with me. Whereas, I'd have still raised the same objection.
1) Since this is HN I will be pedantic and say that Fox was only mentioned 6 times in the body of the article (plus once in the meta, once in a highlighted quote, and once in the headline). Mostly related to one anecdote. Maybe you think it is a stereotype of a Fox viewer, but I should tell you it is a stereotype that has trans-Atlantic reach.
2) I have seen posh houses where the books (cringing as I write this) were arranged by colour. I once built a library for a couple who had less books than me! I would say this is a pretty pithy comment by the author, but I have most certainly seen people buy books to fill shelves that they clearly will never read. I wouldn't suppose that all blue collar workers are prolific readers however.
3) As I said before tipping is not a big thing in the UK, but I found it easier and faster to get paid for a job from a regular Joe.
I used to know an upscale (is that the word?) interior designer, and she would literally buy vintage books by the yard to fill the designer library shelves of the very rich people she worked for.
The conversational thing in the UK is because everyone is incredibly sensitive to class, and also because British people don’t talk to people they don’t know well. It’s not usually a personal snub, although it can feel like one.
The article relied on a number of stereotypes and tropes to carry it. In that sense it was very weak. It reads like a bit of catharsis for the typical Atlantic readership, who relish opportunities to feel outraged about the people in America whom they believe aren't on their team (so to speak).
Plus referring to "Fox news watchers" who had no working cable to watch during any time she was there... so she couldn't possibly know their watching habits.
The obsession with cat piss smells seems odd for a smoker, whose own tobacco odor is never mentioned.
Likewise, referring to having her hair cut short yet later "nuzzled" by the horse.
The choppy, juvenile writing style made me think of an 10th grader who had too much coffee.
"Irate," eh? Maybe if the cable companies weren't local monopolists that operate with the business ethics of a purse snatcher their employees wouldn't have to deal with angry people.
(Aka why I have slow DSL: because it was either that or sue Mediacom until they actually supplied the service I was paying for. Yeah, there's a grudge here.)
Oh, absolutely. And the author sounds like a great person---no surprise at all that these companies screw over their employees even worse than their customers.
Mmmm, but sometimes I've contemplated the hypothetical worst case scenarios for having to support a copper/fiber plant deployment, and what that might actually look like, once you get out into the residential field.
I'm not saying I'm casting a sympathetic eye toward conglomerate post-monopoly abominations like Verizon & AT&T. Far from it.
What I am saying is that as nerds, we really only want to think it looks like this:
But actually, it's more often closer to waiting tables for no tips, in homes consumed by pet smells, infested by perverts, losers and arm chair quarterbacks, pissed off that they've elected to pay for systems that can still suffer outages, just like any vaguely fault-tolerant network. Sometimes, as a subscriber of such systems, the faults hit you.
That's kind of what this article is drawing your eye toward. You wonder:
"How the fuck can a business seemingly employ
only monsters, operate policies concocted from
purest evil, offer zero options, get propped up
as a monopoly by the worst parts of government
funding and compliance, and still turn a profit
where so many other business would instantly
implode and vaporize?"
Part of the answer is that like airlines, they offer essential services to the general public, such that modern civilization may function, and enjoy utilities nearly as valuable as hot water, and they know it.
But, the other part is that in order to interface with the gears of a transmission, contact must transmit the forces of the drive train, and that part that makes contact with the customers is that customer service interface, and like the face of an interleaving set of gears, it must be a reflection of ourselves, on some level.
The customer service, in other words, is as abominable as the common customer.
Disclaimer: I've had friends that work in cable service call centers, who have suffered through high call volume outages, and the calls they would tell me about were ever bit as psychotic and soul crushing as some of the anecdotes from the author of this article.
I think this is true up to a point, but only up to a point. After all, there are lots of mass market essential services that work much, much, better than cable (or the airlines), and as a result aren't as universally hated.
In most US cities the power only goes out when lightning hits something or there's a freak heat wave and everyone turns their A/C on at once (or when there are genuine shortages, like in the old CA rolling brownouts). When the power does go out, the power company typically doesn't lie to you. The same was largely true of landline telephone services back in the day, and, in all honesty, is remarkably true of modern cellphone services (although there's a ton of crookedness about price, for the most part they seem to actually supply services they say they do).
In a way, it's actually egalitarian: for the most part cellphone companies, water utilities, etc., when they do abuse their customers, limit their abuses to money stuff and hence pretty much only abuse the poor. (This is less true about airlines but not completely untrue, witness first class and high frequent flier statuses). It's refreshingly fair that with cable companies in this country you can't get decent service at any price; hedge fund managers and janitors have basically the same terrible experience.
Maybe that's part of why there's so much anger at the cable companies, actually, because so many people who they mistreat aren't used to being mistreated by everyone else. And why so many of the customers are badly behaved.
Oh yes, definitely. But, you have to account for a crucial differences with physical medium transmission networks, where transmission fidelity counts.
The physical medium (the wire) must remain contiguous/unabraided and suffer minimal crosstalk interference.
This means the perfection of signal quality is being directly inspected by the customer, and that the product is non-portable, highly technical, and in personal, private spaces within the home.
Water and power are non-portable, but signal is purely graded by volume sufficiency being present or absent. So, to test, it’s either on or off, and once it’s on, job’s done. Very little haggle or complaint. Water quality is typically promised to be solved prior to the last mile, and last mile concerns are on the subscriber. Not quite so with digital service.
With cellular/wireless service, the last mile appliance is defacto portable. It’s a plain fact that handsets are pocket sized and semi-disposable/planned for obsolescance as a known quantity of the bargain, by now, at least.
With airlines, the variability of routing, origin/destination weather and ground realities combined with traveller fatigue, long haul concerns like sleeping in shared liminal zones means degrees of conflict are always on the table, so stewards, ushers, hosts and attendants expect static and noise, but require home-court advantage to operate.
Basically, cell providers can operate from beyond line of sight with wireless automation. True utilities like water and power can solve for quality centrally, and reduce field service to a binary volume of supply verification.
Meanwhile, airlines and and cable/phone companies must supply near perfect end-to-end coverage, and verify quality assurance in places where you sleep, confronting tired cranky people, where they relax, AS they relax (or try and fail to do so). That fact can’t be dispelled with a hand wave.
I think there's a lot to that. I wonder if landline telephone is the best comparator for cable. It would be really interesting to dig into the history, especially around the AT&T breakup, to see if telephone at a similar stage had similar problems.
There’s probably something regarding cultural differences between then and now.
Cameras weren’t everywhere, film processing required time, nothing went viral in the same ways it does now. This also meant people were more sheltered, expectations were lower, and maybe if you were exposed to a word of mouth black market underworld you knew a little more than those who were naive. But otherwise, even without rose colored glasses, people probably really were more polite by default (unless drunk, for which there might be a time and a place, usually).
But cultural differences aside, the technical aspects of deployment for both cable and public telephone networks followed comparable implementation models.
Originally, the household telephone handsets were proprietary appliances owned by the utility, it was installed by a technician and did not belong to the head of the household. This goes back to telegraphs, undersea cables and wire services which tie into banking networks also.
Back in the 80’s, cable television was new. Black and white television sets weren’t a complete anachronism yet, and rabbit ears were a thing. VHS and VCR appliances were also new. Things weren’t digital yet. Satellite dishes were luxurious and conspicuous to neighbors, and it was said that you could watch channles from other countries with one, including picking up European and Asian adult channels that broadcast nudity, all without any added cost. It was just available to the high gain receivers that could pick up the signals and tune into them.
Cable followed a private model, not a utility, and catered to people with enough money, who were sick of interference static and snowy noise disrupting a TV show. It appeared as trunk lines were put in place in geographic areas, but the technical details followed the telephone utilities, in that the set top box was a proprietary appliance not to be modified or replaced by the end user.
But it was all pretty low tech. Running a wire, plugging into a generic contact point. No special technicians with authorization were require to peer behind the curtain and know the black magic. No microchips, encryption or DRM that couldn’t be trivially overruled. It was mostly the same TV on the airwaves, but piped to the home on a conduit more reliable than the ambient electromagnetic spectrum. Cable companies simply “scrambled” an unpaid channel (there weren’t many to begin with) with an analog modulation that wasn’t much more complicated than interference signals introduced by music equipment, and there was a black market for descramblers that bypassed subscription fees, called hotboxes. You could also just splice into a neighbors line and pull in service for free (stealing cable). I think there’s a Simpsons episode about it.
People wrote letters, and weren’t as dependent on the telephone. There were other options. Road rage wasn’t a thing, not too long ago.
Cable didn’t matter. Telephones didn’t matter. The internet didn’t exist. Things got done differently. Life followed a different pace.
People weren’t on psyche meds like they are now. Mental illness wasn’t diagnosed, or over-diagnosed for that matter. People drove drunk and chain smoked like it was nothing.
Things are different now. Outrage and misbehavior takes on different shapes, even if the signal to noise ratio is the same. We organize civilization according to different rules now.
It depends on where you were, because before the breakup there were still regional operating companies with their own management. In the 70s and 80s we had service from C&P Telephone, and did not have any of the problems that customers of Pacific Bell or New York Telephone were so familiar with. The good times lasted until the dawn of local competition (Bell Atlantic wouldn't install a line the next day because they weren't allowed to do it faster than a clec.) Then when Bell Atlantic bought NYNEX we started seeing all the terrible service problems that New Yorkers held so dear.
Not sure what a random installation guy, who is probably a contractor and isn't even an employee of the company you hate has to do with any of your problems.
Per the article: '“irate” meant that the next job wasn’t going to be a woman in lingerie; it was going to be a guy who pulled out his penis while I fixed the settings on his television.'
I think we can agree that no amount of anti-competitive business practices justifies a customer exposing themselves in front of the company's support tech?
I think you are being downvoted because of the pun at the end of your comment, but if you don't mind sharing, I would love to learn how OTA antennas work.
Had a similar job in a different lifetime. Had more than a few "interesting" jobs at people's houses, on poles,terminals and the like as well.
To me,it wasn't the worst of america but just humans being humans. The angry customers,9/10 of them are not all that bad when you realize they're mad at either the problem or the crappy company you work for. Maybe my working in a different state has to do with it.
The cat piss,dog poop and nastiness was bad but not as bad as being chased by animals and having turn your back to a growling hungry dog the owner insists "oh,he doesn't bite"
The bad ones stand out but I've been in really nice mansions and houses too. Very respectful and kind people too. Most offered water on hot days,some even snacks.
Meh,people are people. It's not good to generalize. Most people are just sorry,life is rough on the 99%.
One of my favourites was quite innocent. I’m in a mobile home, and I had interacted with the family before (they owned a local restaurant). I’m in their home office getting their DSL set up, and slowly it dawns on me that something really smells like shit. Like... it’s permeating the whole house. My eyes are starting to water up a bit.
Finally, I’m getting close to finishing up. Through the door I hear their 4-year-old girl yell “grandma!!! I think I stepped in dog poo outside!!!”
Followed by: “oh honey you got it all over the carpet!”
Sure enough, as I’m leaving I notice an epic trail of tiny dog shit shoe prints spanning from one end of the house to the other. 10/10!
When I went to the restaurant for breakfast the following Saturday, the mom apologized and told me all about how many times they had to run the carpet cleaner through the house to get it cleaned up.
Haha,too familiar. I remember having a similar experience except the dog poop was a result of their chiuaua dog having marked the are behind the tv as it's territory(favorite pooping spot)
"How have you felt since coming out? Have you had a lot of therapy?
Not so much and most of it wasn’t so helpful. I’ve had therapists cry and hug me and it was really strange. They just don’t really know what to do with it. I mean, I still hide things. I still have nightmares, I can’t deal with crowds. I will always feel kind of separate. For a long time, I just didn’t really have friends. In high school, I had no idea how to talk to people. I didn’t understand cultural references. Ninety per cent of conversations are: “Hey, do you remember that episode of Seinfeld?” and shit. And I was weird, I was just awkward. I read everything I could get my hands on. It’s just what I did, I hid in books."
I think she's a good writer, but her own comments suggest her perspectives might not match most people's.
I hope she keeps writing and finds more peace in things around her.
"Homosexuality, says Analyst Bergler, is neither a "biologically determined destiny, nor incomprehensible ill luck." In Freudian terms he traces a complicated pattern of the development of homosexuality from infantile frustrations, through "pleasure in displeasure." to unconscious psychic masochism. The full-grown homosexual, as Bergler sees him, wallows in self-pity and continually provokes hostility to ensure himself more opportunities for self pity he "collects" injustices—sometimes real, often fancied; he is full of defensive malice and flippancy, covering his depression and guilt with extreme narcissism and superciliousness. He refuses to acknowledge accepted standards even in nonsexual matters, assuming that homosexuals have a right to cut moral corners as compensation for their "suffering." He is generally unreliable, in an essentially psychopathic way."
It was off topic and trollish, so correctly flagged. Posting like that will get you banned on HN, so please don't do it again. Instead, if you'd review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the spirit of the site to heart, we'd appreciate it.
I am grateful for articles like this. Every time I need a tradesman or repair person to fix something at home, I will
remind myself that my home..my personal space.. is a zoo and I am better off learning to fix things myself or go without inviting strangers into my home who may or may not get all judge’y and write about it for public consumption.
I was a cable guy in San Francisco. The stories in this article are very plausible and even tame compared to the shit that I've seen.
My first day on my own I went to a "hotel" run by an Indian that barely spoke English in the Tenderloin. He pounded on a door for ten minutes shouting something unintelligible and finally unlocked the door to reveal a tiny room with shit smeared on the walls and a naked transvestite covered in blood from a heroin needle writhing on blood-stained sheets.
"Shouldn't we help?" I asked. "No. Is OK. Fix TV." All the little metal fittings on the cables throughout the whole hotel had been cut off by guests for use as makeshift pipes. The hotel charged by the hour and didn't ask any questions.
I have many anecdotes if anyone is interested in hearing them.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 179 ms ] threadOr hope that things work out and his father finds ways to love him more. This author seems a little angry. The more I read, the more I wondered if this was a normal account, or the account of someone who always seems to find themselves in strife.
But I can't say no to a peek under the sheets of people's lives. It fascinates me. I don't think I could do her job but I've always wanted just an afternoon where time freezes and I can lightly snoop on how a random assortment of people live (though realistically impossible without hurting others). Being a cable technician seems like a fair, legal alternative.
In the words of Anthony Oliveira, "the queers who were nice/patient/gentle all got shot or bullied to death all that's left r me & the other pissed-off cockroach motherfuckers".
https://twitter.com/meakoopa/status/742238554093281280?s=20
I just thought of a new conspiracy theory! The housing crisis is largely political and structural to zoning laws. A large part of the reason why forces to conspire to keep it going (because in practice its bad for everyone - rezoned higher density areas would sell for way more per unit of space to condo building developers than as single family dwellings, so both home owners and buyers are disadvantaged by it) is to abate the migration of youth into urban environments.
In perfect economics the cheapest place to live should be in the city - your per capita infrastructure costs are the lowest when density is the highest, and larger scale condo buildings are cheaper per tenant than single family housing by an order of magnitude. But because of draconian zoning law and NIMBYism cities are rapidly, way beyond the average, costing preposterous amounts of money to live in, and its a self perpetuating cycle - unmet demand for inward migration drives up prices and nothing is relieving that pressure.
So by keeping kids out of cities and stuck in their parents hometowns you can keep them isolated, bigoted, conservative. At least that seems to be what the hope is, and while some escape the ideology trap of small towns the majority of people who grow up there adhere strictly to their culture without deviation. So its probably working to slow the liberalization of the millennial generation.
Thats my tin foil hat moment for the year!
Sellers are disadvantaged by zoning. But it’s their neighbours who are the NIMBYs.
The world is unlikely to be how any one person likes it. Learning to live with it is a good skill.
She had this job for quite a while and so it seems like a very tiny assortment of unpleasant calls. Every friend I know who has worked facing the "general public" has similar grim stories.
Then about a quarter-way in, I get to this paragraph that just broke the needle:
Blue-collar customers were always my favorite. They don’t treat you like a servant. They don’t tell you, “We like the help to use the side door.” They don’t assume you’re an idiot just because you wear a name tag to work and your hands are calloused. The books on their shelves aren’t bound in leather. But the spines are cracked. Most of them, when you turn on the TV, it’s not set to Fox. They’re the only customers who tip.
It's just ideology! ideology! ideology! in the context of a service job where that rarely ever comes up.
With any luck, HuffPo will meet its own Peter Thiel sooner rather than later.
Are you assuming that blue-collar Republicans in red states have not been politically targeted based on "who they are"? Because the opposite is very much the case. There's a reason why people liked Bernie Sanders so much in the latest presidential elections - he was the kind of older-generation leftist who did not pull this sort of elitist BS. Who knows, he might have had a chance.
Screaming about how everyone wants to kill you is over the top and seems like emotional blackmail.
It's basically saying "I hope everyone there loses their livelihood". Extremely nasty and vindictive.
I'd be willing to bet that the only reason the author can afford to write for huffpo is that she's already on disability.
In general, you tip restaurant waiters, delivery, taxis, hotel concierges/housekeeping/bellhops, valet parking and coat check, bartenders, and spa/hair services. Things like cable installation or plumbers are not customarily tipped.
I cannot tip the phone customer service reps, but if I get a really helpful one, I'll ask to speak to their supervisor and put a good word - for what little it may do. In my mind, it's partly about showing gratitude, partially about encouraging behaviour we want to see (understanding that in terms of natural selection, I can tilt the outcome very little compared to the priorities and prerogatives of the company and management, who are typically at odds with me as a customer)
The article did not feel ideological/partisan/political in the least. Yet after reading comments and giving it a second look, I can absolutely, definitely see why it could be perceived that way.
Upon trying to examine my different reactions during reading and afterwards, I think it boils down to:
As a white straight white collar man - democrats, republicans, liberal, conservative, libertarian, etc - these are matters of ideology, perspective - choice.
If I were gay/lesbian as the author though, it's not ideology - it's people who actively wish you harm, and people who do not actively wish you harm. It's a matter of simple survival. Reading the article through the eyes of the lesbian forced to enter strange peoples' homes, I empathized. I was once in a scientology church, went through exam, it was all fun and games until I realized were were two floors below ground and a man with shifty eyes, intense stare, and who couldn't take no for an answer, was between us and the room's door - and dozens more like him between us and safety of the outside. Somewhat similarly, it feels like the author in each new home/environment has to quickly figure out who she's dealing with and act accordingly as a matter of survival. These folks I can be normal with. These folks think I'm an aberration and wish me harm. These are just creeps who want to rub on me. I feel like that very rarely in my life - occasionally as an atheist at a public gathering in really enthusiastic prayer, or back when I was a refugee immigrant in a room full of entitled locals - but most of the time I'm just safe wherever I am. The author is not.
Just imagine an extreme homophobe visiting the homes of gay couples and seeing the worst in them. Wouldn't you suspect that the bad things they saw were ideological distortions in part (if not whole)? What you are reading in this article is something like that situation, only with the orientations reversed.
I'd say you would have to be deliberately ignoring the politics of the time which are generally not friendly at all to members of the LGBT community. You're creating a situation which somehow equates the author sharing her experiences with homophobia to that of someone who is homophobic. It's a goddamn terrible analogy. Try again.
Some people also think the Earth is flat. Does that mean that round Earthers are in imminent danger from them?
Being against gay marriage is a very low status belief that one can no longer hold openly in most of polite society. Aren't you satisfied? Does every single rural agricultural worker or person living under a bridge have to agree before you are safe?
> I'd say you would have to be deliberately ignoring the politics of the time which are generally not friendly at all to members of the LGBT community.
Quite contrary. My eyes are wide open. We live in the best time EVER to be gay. Gayness is openly celebrated in the most prosperous places in our society. It's only ridiculed in the dark corners.
> You're creating a situation which somehow equates the author sharing her experiences with homophobia to that of someone who is homophobic. It's a goddamn terrible analogy. Try again.
It absolutely isn't. I have seen time and time again in the gay community an outright phobia against heterosexuals who look or act traditionally straight. It's very unkind to judge people based on their external appearance or sexual preferences. I have learned from experience not to pre judge people. Mostly in that some of the best friends and allies I have are people who I'd have expected to be "bigots."
Kindness and openness towards others begets the same in return.
Lots of middle-class customers seemed to relish having some 'help' for a day. Seemingly normal people turned into the 'Lord of the Manor' and talked to you like dirt. I found early on as a young and naive team member that clients would come and chat to me hoping to find some information to use against the boss. I could work at someone's house for 6 months and watch them avoid me in town a couple of months later.
I once finished work at a house and saw the owner was sat at a table on his lawn with guests. I walked over to say I was leaving, and the old guy dropped his drink and ran over to me all agitated. He didn't want to talk to me with guests there!
After hours I have had 'friends' I would chat too for a few weeks in the student pubs about literature or something. I'm no Will Hunting, but... I remember one week discussing mediaeval literature with a girl (who was interested that I knew some stories from the Mabinogian, an ancient Welsh text), who then found out I was a builder and said some unkind things and never spoke to me again.
One kind gent always had a cup of tea for us at his house, and kind words about our work, but actively avoided me in the street.
It really confused some of them years later to see me in my regulation pinstripe suit, they didn't know what to say! The fact that I had been a builder was a drag on my career for a while, even with a few years of office experience people still got strange about that on my CV. One former employer told me he nearly blocked my appointment for it without meeting me, and was pleased to admit he was wrong. I don't put it on my CV any more.
So yes people can be real a-holes about manual workers. Believe it.
Tipping is not really a big thing in the UK at all, so I can't help there.
10 mentions of Fox News, having "Obama to hate," and the commentary on the bookshelves and exaggerated tippings of Joe Six-Pack seem a little embellished if you ask me.
edit: Maybe not even "embellished" as much as editorial bias--blowing some odd occurrence out-of-proportion while glossing over the mode.
I don't doubt what she went through in the least, in particular because I've known and experienced the exact same hatred. And some people are going to face even more garbage than others solely based on their skin color or sexual orientation.
It's a highly politicized piece from HuffPo, designed for effect.
No doubt there's some credibility in the piece because it's based on a degree of real life experience, but it's also the most biased kind of writing possible as well, which gives it considerably less validity.
Sadly, if it were written in a more dispassionate tone, it mightn't have been published at all, and we'd have never seen it, which is maybe an important side lesson.
And of course it's going to be biased because individual experiences are biased. That doesn't make their experience any less interesting or valuable to understand because as it turns out, seeing things from all kinds of different perspectives is important for critical thinking and getting a larger picture.
But the piece is inherently political; she uses each personal anecdote to generalize about a group of people, or at least point at that.
For every one of her anecdotes, I feel there was definitely 'another side of the story to tell'.
But I also don't blame her - as I mentioned, you don't get published without drawing a little bit of blood, which is sadly how it works in a lot of the press these days.
That is kind of ironic isn't it? I don't spend a lot of time listening to Fox, but what I have heard has not been entirely dispassionate! In fact I have heard quite a few things that could be described as "highly politicized" and "designed for effect".
People pushed into working in jobs that are physically dangerous and pain inducing and discriminatory dare to get passionate about their situation...yikes, you think they would know their place.
I have no problems with people telling us about discrimination they may face, or their difficulties on the job
... but the author projected positive and negative attributes almost arbitrarily onto groups of people, based on some of 'her experience' - which is kind of a crude, self-selective bigotry.
Worked for myself, so granted, the social dynamics were a little different. Even so, 99 times out of 100, went inside, took their orders, took care of business, went home. No sex dungeons, no mafioso, a little cat pee (but not much), and absolutely no time or inclination to examine their bookshelves or the condition of book spines.
If she had made the grand-tour of right-wing talking-points instead, you probably wouldn't have quibbled with me. Whereas, I'd have still raised the same objection.
2) I have seen posh houses where the books (cringing as I write this) were arranged by colour. I once built a library for a couple who had less books than me! I would say this is a pretty pithy comment by the author, but I have most certainly seen people buy books to fill shelves that they clearly will never read. I wouldn't suppose that all blue collar workers are prolific readers however.
3) As I said before tipping is not a big thing in the UK, but I found it easier and faster to get paid for a job from a regular Joe.
The conversational thing in the UK is because everyone is incredibly sensitive to class, and also because British people don’t talk to people they don’t know well. It’s not usually a personal snub, although it can feel like one.
https://www.booksbythefoot.com/shop/pc/Books-by-Color-c3.htm
The obsession with cat piss smells seems odd for a smoker, whose own tobacco odor is never mentioned.
Likewise, referring to having her hair cut short yet later "nuzzled" by the horse.
The choppy, juvenile writing style made me think of an 10th grader who had too much coffee.
Maybe those people were just introverted, or felt unsure about what you thought of them.
(Aka why I have slow DSL: because it was either that or sue Mediacom until they actually supplied the service I was paying for. Yeah, there's a grudge here.)
I'm not saying I'm casting a sympathetic eye toward conglomerate post-monopoly abominations like Verizon & AT&T. Far from it.
What I am saying is that as nerds, we really only want to think it looks like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPNK7bc2qvM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZOZV7ugBas
But actually, it's more often closer to waiting tables for no tips, in homes consumed by pet smells, infested by perverts, losers and arm chair quarterbacks, pissed off that they've elected to pay for systems that can still suffer outages, just like any vaguely fault-tolerant network. Sometimes, as a subscriber of such systems, the faults hit you.
That's kind of what this article is drawing your eye toward. You wonder:
Part of the answer is that like airlines, they offer essential services to the general public, such that modern civilization may function, and enjoy utilities nearly as valuable as hot water, and they know it.But, the other part is that in order to interface with the gears of a transmission, contact must transmit the forces of the drive train, and that part that makes contact with the customers is that customer service interface, and like the face of an interleaving set of gears, it must be a reflection of ourselves, on some level.
The customer service, in other words, is as abominable as the common customer.
Disclaimer: I've had friends that work in cable service call centers, who have suffered through high call volume outages, and the calls they would tell me about were ever bit as psychotic and soul crushing as some of the anecdotes from the author of this article.
In most US cities the power only goes out when lightning hits something or there's a freak heat wave and everyone turns their A/C on at once (or when there are genuine shortages, like in the old CA rolling brownouts). When the power does go out, the power company typically doesn't lie to you. The same was largely true of landline telephone services back in the day, and, in all honesty, is remarkably true of modern cellphone services (although there's a ton of crookedness about price, for the most part they seem to actually supply services they say they do).
In a way, it's actually egalitarian: for the most part cellphone companies, water utilities, etc., when they do abuse their customers, limit their abuses to money stuff and hence pretty much only abuse the poor. (This is less true about airlines but not completely untrue, witness first class and high frequent flier statuses). It's refreshingly fair that with cable companies in this country you can't get decent service at any price; hedge fund managers and janitors have basically the same terrible experience.
Maybe that's part of why there's so much anger at the cable companies, actually, because so many people who they mistreat aren't used to being mistreated by everyone else. And why so many of the customers are badly behaved.
The physical medium (the wire) must remain contiguous/unabraided and suffer minimal crosstalk interference.
This means the perfection of signal quality is being directly inspected by the customer, and that the product is non-portable, highly technical, and in personal, private spaces within the home.
Water and power are non-portable, but signal is purely graded by volume sufficiency being present or absent. So, to test, it’s either on or off, and once it’s on, job’s done. Very little haggle or complaint. Water quality is typically promised to be solved prior to the last mile, and last mile concerns are on the subscriber. Not quite so with digital service.
With cellular/wireless service, the last mile appliance is defacto portable. It’s a plain fact that handsets are pocket sized and semi-disposable/planned for obsolescance as a known quantity of the bargain, by now, at least.
With airlines, the variability of routing, origin/destination weather and ground realities combined with traveller fatigue, long haul concerns like sleeping in shared liminal zones means degrees of conflict are always on the table, so stewards, ushers, hosts and attendants expect static and noise, but require home-court advantage to operate.
Basically, cell providers can operate from beyond line of sight with wireless automation. True utilities like water and power can solve for quality centrally, and reduce field service to a binary volume of supply verification.
Meanwhile, airlines and and cable/phone companies must supply near perfect end-to-end coverage, and verify quality assurance in places where you sleep, confronting tired cranky people, where they relax, AS they relax (or try and fail to do so). That fact can’t be dispelled with a hand wave.
Cameras weren’t everywhere, film processing required time, nothing went viral in the same ways it does now. This also meant people were more sheltered, expectations were lower, and maybe if you were exposed to a word of mouth black market underworld you knew a little more than those who were naive. But otherwise, even without rose colored glasses, people probably really were more polite by default (unless drunk, for which there might be a time and a place, usually).
But cultural differences aside, the technical aspects of deployment for both cable and public telephone networks followed comparable implementation models.
Originally, the household telephone handsets were proprietary appliances owned by the utility, it was installed by a technician and did not belong to the head of the household. This goes back to telegraphs, undersea cables and wire services which tie into banking networks also.
Back in the 80’s, cable television was new. Black and white television sets weren’t a complete anachronism yet, and rabbit ears were a thing. VHS and VCR appliances were also new. Things weren’t digital yet. Satellite dishes were luxurious and conspicuous to neighbors, and it was said that you could watch channles from other countries with one, including picking up European and Asian adult channels that broadcast nudity, all without any added cost. It was just available to the high gain receivers that could pick up the signals and tune into them.
Cable followed a private model, not a utility, and catered to people with enough money, who were sick of interference static and snowy noise disrupting a TV show. It appeared as trunk lines were put in place in geographic areas, but the technical details followed the telephone utilities, in that the set top box was a proprietary appliance not to be modified or replaced by the end user.
But it was all pretty low tech. Running a wire, plugging into a generic contact point. No special technicians with authorization were require to peer behind the curtain and know the black magic. No microchips, encryption or DRM that couldn’t be trivially overruled. It was mostly the same TV on the airwaves, but piped to the home on a conduit more reliable than the ambient electromagnetic spectrum. Cable companies simply “scrambled” an unpaid channel (there weren’t many to begin with) with an analog modulation that wasn’t much more complicated than interference signals introduced by music equipment, and there was a black market for descramblers that bypassed subscription fees, called hotboxes. You could also just splice into a neighbors line and pull in service for free (stealing cable). I think there’s a Simpsons episode about it.
“We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the Phone Company.”
Cable didn’t matter. Telephones didn’t matter. The internet didn’t exist. Things got done differently. Life followed a different pace.
People weren’t on psyche meds like they are now. Mental illness wasn’t diagnosed, or over-diagnosed for that matter. People drove drunk and chain smoked like it was nothing.
Things are different now. Outrage and misbehavior takes on different shapes, even if the signal to noise ratio is the same. We organize civilization according to different rules now.
I think we can agree that no amount of anti-competitive business practices justifies a customer exposing themselves in front of the company's support tech?
To me,it wasn't the worst of america but just humans being humans. The angry customers,9/10 of them are not all that bad when you realize they're mad at either the problem or the crappy company you work for. Maybe my working in a different state has to do with it.
The cat piss,dog poop and nastiness was bad but not as bad as being chased by animals and having turn your back to a growling hungry dog the owner insists "oh,he doesn't bite"
The bad ones stand out but I've been in really nice mansions and houses too. Very respectful and kind people too. Most offered water on hot days,some even snacks.
Meh,people are people. It's not good to generalize. Most people are just sorry,life is rough on the 99%.
Finally, I’m getting close to finishing up. Through the door I hear their 4-year-old girl yell “grandma!!! I think I stepped in dog poo outside!!!”
Followed by: “oh honey you got it all over the carpet!”
Sure enough, as I’m leaving I notice an epic trail of tiny dog shit shoe prints spanning from one end of the house to the other. 10/10!
When I went to the restaurant for breakfast the following Saturday, the mom apologized and told me all about how many times they had to run the carpet cleaner through the house to get it cleaned up.
I'm sympathetic to the author, she seems to be struggling. This seems true in her article to the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/nov/27/family-relig...) :
"How have you felt since coming out? Have you had a lot of therapy? Not so much and most of it wasn’t so helpful. I’ve had therapists cry and hug me and it was really strange. They just don’t really know what to do with it. I mean, I still hide things. I still have nightmares, I can’t deal with crowds. I will always feel kind of separate. For a long time, I just didn’t really have friends. In high school, I had no idea how to talk to people. I didn’t understand cultural references. Ninety per cent of conversations are: “Hey, do you remember that episode of Seinfeld?” and shit. And I was weird, I was just awkward. I read everything I could get my hands on. It’s just what I did, I hid in books."
I think she's a good writer, but her own comments suggest her perspectives might not match most people's.
I hope she keeps writing and finds more peace in things around her.
Also, she didn't say anything as to whether the water offered was bottled or not.
My first day on my own I went to a "hotel" run by an Indian that barely spoke English in the Tenderloin. He pounded on a door for ten minutes shouting something unintelligible and finally unlocked the door to reveal a tiny room with shit smeared on the walls and a naked transvestite covered in blood from a heroin needle writhing on blood-stained sheets.
"Shouldn't we help?" I asked. "No. Is OK. Fix TV." All the little metal fittings on the cables throughout the whole hotel had been cut off by guests for use as makeshift pipes. The hotel charged by the hour and didn't ask any questions.
I have many anecdotes if anyone is interested in hearing them.