So, as you all no doubt know there are times in life when you have to rely on someone else, on this occasion the someone else in question is an Openreach engineer. Now, as you may be aware Openreach are not the best run organisation in the world, but they serve an important purpose when it comes to phone lines and such.
On Friday there was an Openreach engineer here to install a new phone line, and to look at our broadband to try and figure out why it was so slow.
So there he was, working away, and doing a perfectly competent job of it, when he loses his balance on the ladder. Trying to steady himself he grabs for anything he can get hold of, and ends up getting hold of the metal cabinet housing our network switch, etc. Now said cabinet happens to be laying on a board, not fixed, and so the cabinet comes off with him.
He recovered his balance and grabbed hold of it, and I was standing nearby and managed to get hold of it too so that it didn't fall to the floor, and I managed to take the router out (which is the only bit not screwed in) so that it didn't fall out.
Unfortunately the ladder he'd been standing on fell down, taking a couple of nice chunks out of the wall, and damaging the edge of a nearby work surface. In fairness, it is our ladder that we use to access the data cabinet, and so he shouldn't really have been using that one, but it was there so he used it... fair play.
So we managed to get everything back in order, he went and got a replacement for the one cable that was broken, and everything seemed to be ok. So other than the wall it was no harm done.
The boss, sat in his office, heard all the commotion. When the engineer next went to the exchange the boss approaches me, and asks if the cabinet had fallen down, I said yes... and then it began. Suddenly the engineer, who'd done a perfectly good job up until then was a "jerk", a "f*cking jobsworth", and a "c*nt".
So, I was tasked with getting the guy's name, ID no, etc... no problem.
Sadly the engineer arrived back when the boss was downstairs, and it kicked off. "you've done a good job there mate, you've f*cked that, you've f*cked that, you've f*cked that. You wanna watch what you're doing, and that ladder isn't there for you either". "yeah, ok, I'll get my steps in, no problem. You might want to fix that cabinet down though mate" was the only response from the engineer, that and to go and organise for a claim form to be sent out to us for it.
At the point the boss returns to his office, and tells the guy "leave the details with him" (that being me). Cheers boss, so you've just pissed the guy off and then left me to deal with it.
Anyway, luckily the guy wasn't too bothered, and after I commented that "hopefully he'll keep his head down" he laughed about it. He went off to the exchange again, and arrived back just as I was leaving. I apologised for leaving him to deal with the boss, he said it was me he felt sorry for and after exchanging a chuckle and some pleasantries I went on my way.
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