Don't worry I don't. There's actually an ex-OR guy at work and comparing his accounts with the hoops that the current engineers have to jump through it sounds as if the organisation is now in a virtual straitjacket of procedures and targets and compliance.
It must be costing them though, for example that's now two abortive visits already, the first attendance wasn't an underground engineer at all, and the second although from the underground team wasn't qualified to dig. Why would they have been dispatched to a fault where the whole extend from exchange to DP and from DP to end user is all underground cable? It's even more bizarre because the "underground" cable actually lies on the surface for much of it's length, and even the joints that are buried are just under turfs that can be lifted out by hand. That's why I offered to expose them for him, however apparently that wouldn't get him off the hook so I can only conclude that the cable is classified and known as one that requires this "dig skill", so he'd be in trouble for doing any work on it.
I would also comment that only reason our previous fault made any progress was when the 5th engineer, not an underground team member, did actually pop open a couple of joints to prove the fault lay along the length from house to DP and finally knock on the head the persistent suggestion of REIN. He was presumably chancing his arm outside OR rules, but if it wasn't for him it would never have been fixed.
This is just my own personal thoughts (well, plenty of other engineers that I talk to, as well), but procedures, compliance or whatever we call it …… really does seem to hold us back.
That, coupled with the real culprit that was introduced 25yrs ago (The Work Manager system - a work auto-allocating machine), sees that sometimes wrong engineers are despatched to tasks.
Back in the good 'ol days, we had patch ownership ….. this means you worked on your own patch day in-day out. You very rarely travelled outside your patch and you got to know the local network like you know your own family. Plus, the work was allocated by someone who had done the job, and knew his men's abilities and capabilities ….. ensuring a high success rate of 'the right man to the right job'.
The WM takes all that away …..
So, the WM machine doesn't know that your entire feed is underground for its entirety …… it can only allocate tasks based on the test result the ISP has given the task (i.e.: Overhead, UG, Broadband, REIN, Hot-site etc), which is why you had a UG engineer, but presumably not safe-dig trained ??
It matters not what the EU thinks about the cable, how deep it is, that they themselves would be willing to dig it up …… all that matters is compliance with the rules & regs (especially where health and safety are concerned) that BTOR lay down.
It isn't as you conclude that the cable is labelled as 'Dig skill', so the engineer would get in trouble if working on it. We don't have that info on our tasks when allocated initially. It's the fact that we are regularly and randomly audited on our work which would throw up the skilling issue had the non-skilled engineer worked on the cable ?
If that was me I would have done exactly the same, getting tin-tacked for gross negligence and the possibility of losing ones pension is more than enough to make me walk away. Mr aesmith (or any other EU) are highly unlikely to provide the lifestyle I've become accustomed to should the other option happen.