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[Oranged]

The OR engineer should have checked his work but didn't

And that was the key mistake......not the fact that he trapped the wire under the screw, as BS said, anybody can make that mistake.

But if the engineer had checked all was OK after he'd finished re-assembling then none of this would have occurred.

In my mind that engineer was either in a rush or he needs a little more training.

[Black Sheep]

It's pretty much 'pie in the sky' stuff now, as even if Openreach accepted the complaint, there's no 'proof' that any wrong has been committed !!

As a business of BT's size, spurious claims are a daily occurrence, there has to be evidence to back up these claims. If it was 'your' company and you accepted the complaint and despatched a 'Coach' or 'Manager' to investigate the claims, then you wouldn't find anything wrong when you attended this particular EU's premises, as the OP has already had the work repaired.

Multiply this potential 'claim' by the millions of EU's in the UK, and there has to be a process to follow, or it becomes a free-for-all.

It's like in any walk of life, if somebody screws up they have to be given the chance to repair the damage done. The only saving grace for the OP is that he has a ticket logged with Plusnet about the issue, this may pay slight dividends but I doubt it. 

[c6em]

Pah! - this is nothing.

Try this for fun
Joint box in D side splitting out individual lines to distribution box/pole outside my house fails in January, my neighbour lines goes dud.
Pole declared unsafe to climb - so BT have to get in the bucket lift vehicle.
BT mend it and in passing assure me defective joint underground where the fault actually was , plus defective cable on pole and distribution point which is leaking water will all be replaced. They ask me to check my line is still working - all OK

Skip forward to May  - I think it was
My line fails.
So I wait 4 days and it's fixed by BT in my absence. Goodness know where the fault was but I think we can guess.....
That mend precipitates another neighbour's off the same Distribution point to fail at the exact time mine is being mended.
They wait 5 days and BT turn up - yes in the joint box yet again.
I'm out while this is happening but see the BT man starting down the joint box as I'm leaving and get a 'sinking feeling'.
I return home midday - find my line non functional (no surprise there) and my ADSL connection failed at the time my neighbours was being mended - 0.5 hours after I left.
I now ring up BT
I wait a further 3 days - BT turn up and this time actually listen to me - totally unaware of the 'history' over the last week+ of course.........
Break found exactly where I said it would be - yup down the joint box yet a bleeding gain.
This time after it is fixed we go round each person on the distribution point checking all their phones still works.
I'm assured yet again that the whole lot is down for replacement.

We are now end of July - has the replacement work been done - what do you think.
No, and I'm just waiting until we go round the circle all over again.

Oh and the pole has been re-inspected and now mysteriously declared safe to climb again

[Black Sheep]

There's no "mystery" about it. It sounds like the pole was out of its test cycle, which deems it un-climeable at that time. A 'Request Test' is forwarded to the Poling Team, and the subsequent tests have obviously passed. A mystery is something unexplained or unknown ...... this is a factual process we follow so we don't die.

Regarding the defective joint. On this I sympathise with you as it sounds like an Aliminium cabled joint, that we affectionately call 'Mend one - drop one'. The engineer isn't deliberately knocking circuits off whilst laughing dementedly, he'll have unfortunately disturbed the glass like structure by mistake.

If procedure has been followed, an A1024 defect will have been submitted so that our SSR cousins can turn up and remake the faulty joint. In times of very low workstacks, we field engineers will also carry out A1024 work. I have to be honest and say in years gone by, the A1024 process was slow to come to fruition, but of late it has come good.

C'mon guys, hit me with some more tales of woe !!!

[c6em]

Thanks indeed for the reply - 'twas interesting.
I had assumed that a pole deemed unsafe to climb could only be replaced and not that it could be re-certified.
I suspect it is the difference between one genuinely unsafe - and so will not be getting any less unsafe over time and one which is actually quite safe - but as you said, is out of the test cycle period so cannot be legally climbed under the H&S regulations.

Yes it is Ali'.
Previous BT engineers have mentioned/moaned to me about the D-side tails in the PCP having been endlessly re-made over decades and hence cut back at each re-make are now very short indeed.

[Black Sheep]

No worries c6em. The more that folk are educated in the red tape, procedures and dark arts of BT Openreach, the better the relationship between all. It is sheer frustration on the EU's part that causes the vast majority of complaints.

Re: Pole Testing. This is not my area so I'm not in full possession of the facts. But the bit I do know is that they all have a 13year test cycle. There should be a green/white 'punch-hole' strip attached to the pole that indicates the last time it was tested (Month and year). Add to that, there was a national directive sent out that any poles manufactured in 1990 and 1991 (with a manufacturers mark of '1') should not be climbed as there had been a couple of serious incidents whereby there was found to be rot inside the poles. Again, this is only what I have been told, but it appears this particular manufacturer (based in Liverpool) had not injected the 'preserve' completely into the pole, allowing rot to set in.

Whatever folk think of BT, I will stand in court and swear to anyone listening, that 'Health & Safety' is, and always will be, their first concern. Rightly so. Being honest again, it is in some parts of the job massive overkill, but accidents are almost non-existent these days, at least the ones reported. 

Final point on Pole Testing (as we seem to have drifted from the OP's questions), is that the actual testers use a new-fangled thingamajig that measures the 'resistance' of the wood right through the pole. I can't remember the name of the equipment, but it's a relatively new toy for the guys. 

[openreach dude]

Your comments read eminently sensible, SS44.

To be fair to PlusNet, they employed Openreach to perform the task. So as happy37 had to outlay £30-00 to correct an error created by the installing Openreach engineer, I cannot see any reason for PlusNet to refuse to reimburse that sum. They, PlusNet, can then recover that sum from Openreach.

To be fair to the installing Openreach engineer, this issue possibly arose due to the incessant "micro-managing" to which they are subjected. Possibly the engineer had been given N tasks to complete in H hours when, in fact, H+1.5 hours would have been far more realistic for the N tasks.

I'm sure that Black Sheep will comment, when he next passes. 

I didn't really want to comment, but seeing as a certain Cat has mentioned myself, well ....... 

I think this whole 'complaint' scenario is a tad OTT . There won't be a single telecoms engineer (Including his mate) who won't have accidentally got a wire trapped, whilst screwing tight a socket front. The bloke made a mistake ..... end of.

As Black sheep says, there isnt an engineer who has not made a mistake. If the engineer was mobile workforce (as i) then he may have time had 4 other tasks behind him, 2 hours per installation given x5+ travel time+ 40 minutes dinner on an 8 8 hour shift......do the maths, it just doesn't fit. Not making excuses for the guy, just saying he made a mistake and didn't bodge the install up per se. Although i can understand your concerns, i always get the end user to check all phone lines are working and a ring in ring out. Plus while im closing the job down for ten minutes they can (and have) let me know if they think something isnt right.

[silversurfer44]

Can we please call the end user (eu) by the proper terminology. Customer.
I can understand the feeling of work staff chasing their own tail. Especially in a service industry, that's what it is really,  an engineer in a service industry.
How can a trained engineer expect a customer to understand the inner workings of the company. All the customer wants is their service to work, and quite rightly, that's what they are paying for.
I agree that we all make mistakes, if we didn't make a mistake then we would not learn anything.

This thread seems to have gone way off topic.

I hope you get things sorted to your satisfaction Happy37.

[openreach dude]

Can we please call the end user (eu) by the proper terminology. Customer.
.

We are told to say end user, customer is the cp, sorry dont mean to be splitting hairs......just what were told. Hopefully he got it sorted in the end

[burakkucat]

   Now when I first became "involved" with telephones & the provision of a telephone service, that telephone service was provided by the GPO and I was a subscriber. 

[silversurfer44]

I stand corrected by the wise feline.
I would like to point out that subscriber & customer are in effect one and the same thing.
I.E. subscriber - someone who contracts to receive and pay for a service or a certain number of issues of a publication,
customer, client - someone who pays for goods or services.

@openreach dude, whilst conversing with the company and other company employees by all means do as you are told, but when conversing with subscribers/customers of the company one should be more polite. After all you don't have a clue as to who the other person might be.

[Black Sheep]

Silver Surfer ..... as you dont pay our wages and BT O do, I think we'll abide by the rules that are laid out in stone, and carry on calling the End User, the End User.

As OR Dude has already pointed out to you, 'our' customers are SP's, ISP's, CP's ....... if we input a TRC (a bill) it goes to our customer. They then decide whether to pass it on to the End User.

It's good of you to educate us in the way of etiquette, but after over 30yrs working with the general public (25 with OR, 5 as a sparky), you can sleep easy knowing I and the rest of BT O staff, are aware of how to address individuals on a face-to-face basis. Thanks for the heads-up though.

[kitz]

hmmm..  peace and all that.   

Whilst I fully understand that we all can and do make mistakes, and this was a mistake that should not have happened.   

Id hate to see an OR engineer hauled over the coals for something that can easily be done if under pressure or time constraints...  but at the end of the day Happy had been left in a situation whereby he was left in a situation of no phone through no fault of his own. 

From a customers perspective then the 7 day thing could easily be misinterpreted, as this is something I could easily imagine my parents thinking.    I can easily see that anyone in this situation may be miffed and wanting it sorted asap.

I really dont know what could be done about this as I can see things from all sides (EU, ISP, BTO engineer).   I can fully understand Plusnet not wanting to be liable to shell out £30 for something that wasnt their doing, but then again the EU (or customer) is the one that is out of pocket here and the one that has been inconvenienced.

hmmm   I can even see that BT may take a hardline and say that the EU shouldnt have called out a 3rd party blah blah blah. 
Just a thought -    I know this isnt in any way shape or form Plusnets fault, but in the sake of customer relations, would it be possible to offer a gesture to the customer of say so many free days internet, and reduce their monthly bill accordingly.    It may be a quick and easy solution to this and in the end cost less than manpower time by chasing it with BT.

[openreach dude]

b*cat nods, to acknowledge your comments. 

he should have rung his ISP who would have immediately dispatched another engineer to attend site to correct the fault, which would usually be done under the 'e-Viper' escalation route.

The question here is whether happy37's ISP, PlusNet, is aware (and make use) of "the 'e-Viper' escalation route."

The fault would be raised to their cp (in this case plusnet) the cp then goes to Openreach with the complaint/fault. That is then sent out as an E viper to the engineers line manager. Openreach will then IMMEDIATELY have someone out to look at it (i went to look at an Eviper complaint on someones work the same day it came in) then  Openreach can either accept or reject the request.

[Black Sheep]

Peace shall always prevail Kitz, but please lets not go down the road of trying to tell us of how we should do our jobs !! You wouldn't like it, and neither do I.
This was typed in a happy way, so not to be misinterpreted as anti-peace. 

Back to the thread and protocol, OR Dude has kindly backed up my input on eViper cases. It's there for a reason and all the ISPs know about it. Granted, the EU probably won't have, but by ringing his ISP they should have taken him down this trail immediately, not given 'up to 7 days' wait times for a repair. You say it wasn't Plusnet's doing, Kitz, thats fair enough as it was our engineers mistake, but they should have immediately opened up an eViper case, thus putting this to bed promptly.

Unfortunately we now have a 'blame game' situation, where no one will really benefit.