Telecommunications Trades Workers
Install, maintain and repair data transmission equipment, aerial lines, conduits, cables, radio antennae and telecommunications equipment and appliances.
Cables, pits and a farm without signal
You are a telecommunications technician working alone in a ute across a rural district, with a list of faults and a pit full of water at your first job. It is 8am on a cold morning after a week of rain. Your list has eleven faults. At the first pit, the cable you need is under water, and your phone has just buzzed with a message from a worried farmer.
Choose what you would do. Then see what happens. There are often good reasons for each choice.
Mate, my internet has been off for six days. I run my business from it, and I have got a delivery of stock on Thursday that I need to confirm. Can you do me first? I know you must be flat out.
Reply that you will do his first, to keep him happy, and drive straight there
Gordon is delighted, but two customers on your list who rely on their phone lines for safety wait longer. A promise that suits one customer can be unfair to the others.
Ask what he relies on the line for, tell him where he is on the list and why
Gordon realises there are people ahead of him with more urgent needs. He is not happy about the wait, but he is not angry either, and he can plan the delivery from a neighbour's connection.
Ignore the message until you have finished the list, then reply
You stay focused, but Gordon keeps ringing the depot, and the person in the office has no answer. A two line reply would have saved everyone time.
I know the pit is full of water, but the customers on this line have been off a week. Can you just get in there and start on it as it is? I need this line open today.
Climb in and start work, since the supervisor has told you to
You work with water around your boots, close to the cable, and the rushed job damages it further. Ruth has to explain a bigger fault, and nobody should be working in a pit like that.
Tell Ruth the pit needs to be pumped out and made safe first, and ask for support
Ruth sends a pump and a second person. It takes an hour and the pit is safe to work in. The line is fixed properly, and Ruth admits she was in a rush.
Say you will come back tomorrow when the water has gone down
The pit is still full tomorrow and the rain returns overnight. You were right not to climb in, but the customers on that line wait another day because there was no plan to make it workable.
You are the first person to turn up in a week! My phone line is dead and my internet too. The last technician took the cover off the box outside and left it hanging. Can you just fix it?
Fix the line and leave the box hanging, since it is not part of your job
The line works, but the box is open to the rain and the next storm kills it again. You solved the fault and left behind the cause of the next one.
Tell Maeve the last technician was sloppy, and that you would never have left it like that
Maeve repeats it to her neighbours, and the story gets back to your depot with a name attached. You have not fixed anything extra, and you have made a colleague's hard week harder.
Fix the line, close up the box, and record what you did on the job log
The line works, the box is sealed, and the log means the next technician will know the history. Maeve says it is the first job in a week that someone had finished.
How it went
By evening you have cleared eight of eleven faults, left a clear log for the rest and had a decent conversation with a farmer. Telecommunications work is outdoors, practical and often the only link people have. Would you like being someone a whole district depends on?
This is a simplified, fictional situation to help you explore. It is not professional instruction or a test of your ability.
Case study: The storm and the medical alarm
A fictional case set in a telecommunications crew installing and repairing phone and internet lines, towers and cabling across a country region.
The situation
After a storm took out lines across a rural district, Nkechi's crew had more than sixty faults on their list. One call stood out: an older woman, Mrs Pellegrino, who lived alone, relied on a pendant alarm that called for help over her phone line, and the line was dead. Her daughter rang the depot three times, scared. The crew's schedule had them sorted by area and not by need.
What they did
Nkechi re-sorted the list so that people who relied on their line for safety went first, and drove to Mrs Pellegrino's house within the hour. She found a broken connection where a fallen branch had pulled the line, and fixed it. She then phoned the daughter from the roadside, and tested the alarm with Mrs Pellegrino to check that the call went through. She asked the depot to check if any other customers on the list relied on their lines for safety.
How it turned out
Mrs Pellegrino's line was back by lunchtime. Two other households were found on the list who relied on their alarms, and were reconnected that day. The depot changed the way it takes storm reports, so that safety needs are asked about first.
What would you do?
- Why do you think the list was first sorted by area and not by need?
- How would you feel about changing a plan to help one person first?
- What questions would you ask a customer who tells you their line is dead?