dont press the red button when the truck is running

I got all the new cables pulled and punched down out in the office. I get all the old crap off the wall and loaded into my vehicle to scrap/recycle and started pulling the new cables. Cut the old junk at the top of the wall yank it back to the closet, cut it up top, pull the loose junk away from the old systems. This customer was in a small strip mall area that had nice high drop ceilings so install and removal of the old garbage was fairly easy. The network “closet” was a 4’x4’ graveyard filled with junk systems, two old phone punch down panels, dead battery backups, and the current systems I was replacing.

This particular job was a network upgrade to replace the old network drops and land line phone switch system and install IP phones along with a new network switch for the recent fiber upgrade they got. I’ve installed/upgraded several network setups and phone systems by this point and I’m fairly confident I know how to pull cables and remove the old crap that has been dry rotting for years in the ceilings and walls. This was back around early 2005-6ish, at this time I have about 8 years of experience under my belt and I’m pretty confident in what I know and what I don’t and the difference between the two. I was on my way to work tonight and had a pair of cop cars goes flying past me and it reminded me of this story. Back again for another tale of insanity and tech woe’s that dances on the border between stupidly impossible and yet somehow plausible.

Dont press the red button when the truck is running