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We have these "professional" (I use the term loosely) contractors doing the wiring and setting up printers in the retail stores. They have their own cables, tools, etc.. Our responsibility is to go in and install the software on all the sales PCs and make sure the printers work.
Sounds easy, right? As long as the contractor knows what they're doing.
My first few stores were not too bad, OK, he forgot to plug the punch down board into the switch, no biggie, just grab a cable from the van and its done.
I can tell a cluster of stores were done by a different person. He's 0 for 4 in these stores. One store told me he ate their lunch, without asking (how professional).
I'm in a store. 3 printers.
One works fine, but that's because the RJ-45 jack was already there. The other two, the two important ones, have no connectivity to the switch or router. Tracer traces back to the punch board and sure enough, he didn't connect the ports to the switch. Eh, I grab another set of cables from the van and plug them in hoping it was ni big deal. Hmm, still no connectivity. Sure, my LAN connectivity tester verifies a 100MbpS connection to a switch, but no data. Hmm... No lights on the switch's ports they're connected to either.
I grab my laptop and plug it directly into the switch. Yep, I have connectivity. OK.
I bring my laptop out to the floor, unplug the cable from the wall (easier to do that than unplug from the printer) and one out of the two has connectivity. OK, one has bad wiring between the punchdown and the wall, contractor nees to come back out here and re-do the wiring but the last printer is still not picking up an IP address. I pull the printer out and check the wire, something isn't right. I pull out my LAN tester (this tests to make sure that port 1 is the same wire on both ends, and so on up to wire #8). Guess what?
The guy made a crossover cable (often used to plug directly into a router or going from one switch to another). Yes, this guy made a bunch of crossover cables to connect the printers.
To give you a hint of his incompetence, we have access doors on the bottom of each sales desk to access wiring (RJ-45, VOIP, power etc..). He bolts the shelves for the printers down OVER these doors so now I can't even get into the wiring areas under these sales stations.
I fear the fifth store that I have to go to next week. What did he do there? Wire an RJ-11?
Sounds easy, right? As long as the contractor knows what they're doing.
My first few stores were not too bad, OK, he forgot to plug the punch down board into the switch, no biggie, just grab a cable from the van and its done.
I can tell a cluster of stores were done by a different person. He's 0 for 4 in these stores. One store told me he ate their lunch, without asking (how professional).
I'm in a store. 3 printers.
One works fine, but that's because the RJ-45 jack was already there. The other two, the two important ones, have no connectivity to the switch or router. Tracer traces back to the punch board and sure enough, he didn't connect the ports to the switch. Eh, I grab another set of cables from the van and plug them in hoping it was ni big deal. Hmm, still no connectivity. Sure, my LAN connectivity tester verifies a 100MbpS connection to a switch, but no data. Hmm... No lights on the switch's ports they're connected to either.
I grab my laptop and plug it directly into the switch. Yep, I have connectivity. OK.
I bring my laptop out to the floor, unplug the cable from the wall (easier to do that than unplug from the printer) and one out of the two has connectivity. OK, one has bad wiring between the punchdown and the wall, contractor nees to come back out here and re-do the wiring but the last printer is still not picking up an IP address. I pull the printer out and check the wire, something isn't right. I pull out my LAN tester (this tests to make sure that port 1 is the same wire on both ends, and so on up to wire #8). Guess what?
The guy made a crossover cable (often used to plug directly into a router or going from one switch to another). Yes, this guy made a bunch of crossover cables to connect the printers.
To give you a hint of his incompetence, we have access doors on the bottom of each sales desk to access wiring (RJ-45, VOIP, power etc..). He bolts the shelves for the printers down OVER these doors so now I can't even get into the wiring areas under these sales stations.
I fear the fifth store that I have to go to next week. What did he do there? Wire an RJ-11?
I AM the evil bastard!
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