New Job Kinda
 

I have been offered a trainning place with a company in N ireland if i pass the medical on monday . It is a bridge to employment thingy. The job that i wil be doing is Installation Technician after passing a 6 week traning course.


All iam looking to know is what does this job involves and do the guys that r doing it at the min like it or not any info on this would be brill.:D As far as i know it is bring wire from the box in the street into the users home etc ..

Kinda excited about it but knowing my luck it will all go tits up.

Thanks for reading this and to anyone that replys thank you ..



Reagrds
MovieMad

Re: New Job Kinda
 

One of my patients is a business BB installer for ntl...........crappy job apparently but I suppose it's what you make of it :)

Re: New Job Kinda
 

:welcome: to the forum. Just wait for the post saying that if you have to pass a 6-week training course, the job can't be with NTL.;)

Re: New Job Kinda
 

oh poo :mad: i was hoping to hear someone say it was a great job lol . Well i have never had a good job yet all crappy & crappy money etc. This to me is prob the best job i will ever get lol if only i had went to uni instead of wanting money to pee away lol :p: Oh well iam still a young 26 year old the job i want really is in IT only i droped out after 1 year cause i picked dam information technology when i really wanted a hands on job .

Thanks for the info m8 hope someone out there likes and and can tell me what they do from day to day ..
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lol john no its not with NTL its with a contractor that does most of ntls work over here in N ireland well so iam lead to belive .Thanks for the welcome.;)

Re: New Job Kinda
 

install cables maybe ;) , :welcome: to the site btw :) , seriously , assuming you are going to be going into customers houses then make sure you are polite , courteous and make sure you take your bloody boots offbefore entering :D :D , i reckon it is going to be what you make it , at the end of the day what have you got to lose by giving it a go ;) , good luck as well :tu:

Re: New Job Kinda
 

Feel better now Paul? :)

Re: New Job Kinda
 

Who is the job gonna be with, ntl or the subcontractor McNicolas Construction ????

Re: New Job Kinda
 

True paul iam always nice so that part will be easy for me :) . Yeah i will make it good if i get all they way . If i get it i have to drive 50 mile everyday so i better make it good .:D Thanks god i have adsl lol not ntl but if i get the job i will make all your connections 20 mb each in line with france and i wont impose a cap what so ever ..:D
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Yeah Earl its with McNicolas Construction .

Re: New Job Kinda
 

Cant do that, its against Health and Safety Law to do so. Instead they give you crappy plastic overboots, which are deadly slippy on any interanl flooring.
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Good luck mate.......

I worked for them on the ntl contract, be ready to slog your guts out. I was talkin to one of the installer before crimbo and was told the install rate was to be cut to the installers (and it was already a joke when I was there). Six installers had been layed off, and more where to go in the new year because ntl couldnt get enough work for the lads to cover (though this may have changed). When I left October last year, ntl was in the middle of another round of job-cuts and thus dealing with the ntl staff in the affected offices was pants. No-one was interested in doing there job properly, so the installer ended up on the phone an extra one to two hours a day sorting out the arse that ntl staff had left things in. Again this may have changed, but I cant say for sure.

Also, the contract manager at McNicolas was not the easiest person to work for. Infact in my own case was a large part of why I left. But you never know how much things have changed since I bailed out of working for ntl....

Re: New Job Kinda
 

Thanks for the info Earl that has helped alot as far a sloging my guts out well i dont mind getting dirty and doing a hard days graft as long as its worth it . Iam not sure how good the money will be but it said on the letter i got that it would be 325 plus a week i would say thats top line yeah ?.Even so thats the biggest wage i will have to date . If its not to much trouble could u tell me what they acctually do eg kango hammer lol etc i have not got a clue and is it mainly in new estates home or in businesses etc .Good job its not based on my english skills lol .:p: Oh and if still the same what was your hours of work there ? if i may ask ..


Regards
MovieMad

Re: New Job Kinda
 

You will most likely be teamed up with a second person and operate as part of a two man, residential install team.

Basically you leave the yard at about 07.30 get to your first job some time after 08.00 and get stuck in. When you get to the install, you introduce yourselves to the sub (subscriber), agree cable-routes, placement of service points etc, then as a team pull the drop cable from the cab to the house. Once the cable is pulled you get all the required kit out of the van, and get the drop into the customers property. This is done by drilling through the boundry wall into the property and feeding the drop cable throught the hole from an access point in the footpath outside the subs house. If there is a garden you will be reguired to bury the drop upto 10 inches deep in boarders and 8 inches deep in the lawn. The drop cable is itself placed inside a length of green plastic flexi-duct to help protect it from customers spades. They love cutting the cable with spades. Once the cable is buried in the garden you may need to kango a track across any concrete or tarmac at the front of the house.

While the outside man is doing all the graft, the inside man will have drilled out throught the wall of the house. He will then feed out any internal cables required (catv for tv feed and telco for the phone line), we will then mouth any and all service points and clip any cable required to where the customers equipment is situated.

On the outside of the house over the drillout point a grey service point called an ETB is mounted (ETB = End or External Termination Box). Inside this box the drop cable and the internal cables are joined together. Any and all external reinstatement is done to return the subs property to as close a condition as before you started work.

Once all the connections are made at the house, the drop cable is connected at the cab. Once this final connection is made to the network, the inside man then connects up the digi decoder/ cable modem, checkes the phoneline, calls the hit to activate the digi stb. Tunes up the subs tv/ vcr, gives the demo and thn you boogie off to do it all over again. ;)

Last time I was talkin to any of the installers I think he said the two-man teams where doing 4 or 5 installs a day. No idea if thats the case now. If you do get the start in 6 weeks, hope you get Alex McAlister as your supervisor. Hes been at the job since ntl came to Belfast and is a sound bloke all in all.

Good luck no matter what happens, just say clear of Gerry the manager, the has the man management skills of a rabid dog. I'll prolly be talkin to Alex tomorrow, if so I'll ask some questions about the install quotas/ pay etc an PM to you if you wish.

Re: New Job Kinda
 

At least it's not Kelly Communications :Yikes:

Kelly + NTL = Laurel and Hardy :D

Re: New Job Kinda
 

JE Earl cant belive u when to so much detail thanks a million for that now i have a great picture in my head about the job . And after all that iam still kinda excited about it yeah i have a crappy life if it wernt for alt binnary newsgroups i would be in a nut house lol . If you could find out pay and installs a day that would be great .What time did ya normally finish a day . Just want to know as my partner works on the lisburn rd and trying to find out if we could both get home and up to work together . What part belfast u from u never know i might have even had a pint with u before;) as thats where my partner is from . Christ so many questions iam asking sorry bud :D .Thanks a million for all your information m8 just what i needed .

Re: New Job Kinda
 

not bad for a second post , i wonder if you want to flesh it out a bit , or was it just a moan for the sake of it ;)

Re: New Job Kinda
 

lol not to sure about the rest as iam from maghera not down there m8 ;)

Re: New Job Kinda
 

The stated hours of work where 08.00 to 17.00, with an alleged one hour lunch break, but no installer really took the break. More realistically you will prolly work till between 18.00 and 19.00, seeing as the ntl Install Support Office is open till 20.00 its conceiveable you'll work right upto 20.00. The bad thing about residential installing is that you never know how big a job is gonna be untill you turn up at the door. So say goodbye to any possible social life you may have during the week.

Two things I forgot to post earlier.

1). McNics (when I worked there) had a habbit of docking 20% of your weekly wages if you have to take a day off. So if you go down with a bad cold/ flu you may as well take the rest of the week off. Its bugger all fun loosing a days wages due to illness or a family emergency, and then loosing another days pay because you had to take a day off without warning the boss.

2). As an installer, and especially a sub-contracted installer you will be treated like a lying, lazy, worthless piece of s**te by ntl. You are lower than the **** on the bottom of a pond. But then again they seem to treat their own employees just as badly.

But good luck with the job all the same mate. ;)

Re: New Job Kinda
 

Mickey Mouse training, empty promises, false promises, stitch up over pay, vans, deductions etc. Complete lack of respect for staff and contractors, treat people like dirt on the bottom of your shoe (the smelly kind!). Think they are a multi-national company with a fleet of over 1200 vehicles but in reality hire most of them and the rest are clapped out stuff bought from auctions. Allways looking for ways to deduct money from your wages with new ideas to rip you off with regards to vehicle accidents, tools, clothing, mobiles, etc, stuff that is promised when you start but then suddenly become chargeable when you have been there a few weeks:dozey: The management and supervisors must constantly be looking at themselves in the mirror as they love themselves that much but have a higher regard of plankton than a contractor who works for them. Oh and they think they can walk on water....:p:
Will this do?
I'm just glad I don't work for them anymore. More to follow from my source.

Re: New Job Kinda
 

Oh dear having second thoughts now ffs . I though it might have been a good job to have but sounds alot different from what i am hearing here :Yikes: . Oh well all i can do ,if i make it that far is have a good go and it . And if i get treated like others have been or i dont like it well they can stick it where the sun dont shine lol . If i did get it and stuck it out for a while got trained and learn all i have to know . From the trainning and experience i have learned from that job what other jobs could i do from the experience i have gained or is it worthless in other jobs similar jobs i mean.

Re: New Job Kinda
 

At the end of the day if you have been out of work for a while etc just go for it. It's what you make of it. Just bite your tongue and get on with the work. You are out in the open air, seeing different sights and never stuck at the same place, day in day out. It's better than stacking shelves:dozey: think of the money:D good luck and I hope it all works out for you. The customer handling experience is very handy plus the installation work is also good for jobs at sky or cabling industry.

Re: New Job Kinda
 

Just do it.

What's the worst that could happen? You don't like it so you leave. At least then you'll have tried.

If you don't try you'll never know, and will always think 'what if....?'

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Re: New Job Kinda
 

Installation of high tech equipment into peoples living space is going to boom, I think, the increasing complexity of the systems available is getting beyond 'joe public' - and there are other opportunities, for example our house alarm was installed by a professional, it is not wireless, but you cannot see any wires ;)

- if you have the chance of training and a job at the end then do it, get the job, then look around for somewhere you can use the training & the experience you didn't have before. - good luck :tu:

Re: New Job Kinda
 

It is experience at the end of the day. Do not let people put you off, everyone is different at the end of the day. You may totally love the job and some people well dont! I have just gone back to doing Agency Nursing as I was never happy after I left and I just could not settle after I left Allied. I think Paul is just glad that I have a job, as I always seem to lose my rag or threaten to knock someone lights out. Just give it a go, it may be the job for you and you know how hard the job market is nowadays! Allie, Pauls lovely wifey!!!!!!

Re: New Job Kinda
 

Yeah you guys are all right for sure . Oh i will be giving it my best shot cause it intrestes me very much and i never had a job that i was out and about everyday so thats going to be really great . And yeah i do need a job and its harder to get any job these days . Thanks for all your kind works ppl and informative info. Well monday is getting closer now thats d day for me hope i pass iam 26 kinda fit and not dieing so i hope i pass the medical. Getting quite nervous now as i see this Opportunity as something i will be doing till i hit the scrap heap .

Regards
MovieMad

Re: New Job Kinda
 

MovieMad

The supervisors are ok ...well the ones from the days of RFT are anyway ..
The manager as EOB says is a complete **** and has the mangment skills of a dead badger ...
But it is an intresting job... you get to meet people from all walks of life. Once you get into the swing of things it isnt that bad . Yes ntl do treat you like somthing they stood on in the street ... but dont let it bother you. Just keep your head down and get on with it . I was a contractor for 4 years and had some really good times .... When you get to McNics yard on your first day ask for "yoda" and tell him big andy sent you ... he'll look after you ;)

Andy E
ntl pirate

Re: New Job Kinda
 

Cheers andy m8 that and a few other people posts have cheered me up alot . I cant wait now to get stuck in. :D This forum is great with loads of great people its nice to be a member here now . I only hope that i can help some of you sometime . If u need advice in movies let me know from converting an xvid divx burning a dvd iso or Video_ts stuff like that . I have a small site i host from my pc well iam learning it all at the min well its easy to tell the truth its all done for u e107 php and mysql I have a few dvd covers on it and will have loads of music covers on it when i sort it all out .:p: Once again thanks for the info I will let u all know if i pass the medical , fingers crossed.

Re: New Job Kinda
 

take the training get some practise and if you don't like it then run taking the experience and knowledge with you. I sub contracted for BT (now i hate em), i was an alarm engineer but now i work in retail trying to make my way up ladder. The practical skills help me tremendously in my current job. enjoy it if you can, avoid the politics and of the think of the exercise.

Re: New Job Kinda
 

Just remember variety is the spice of life and you will never be in the same place. Keep an eye on your goals and your targets for the day and you will be fine. Stay away from the bitches as they will only drag you down in the end and think positive and you will do well. Why do you think I work for an agency???? As I am never in the same place and if they bitch about me I set them straight, that is why I used to be in demand so much before I left. And if you do not like it you can at least say you have had a jolly good try at it!!!!!!!!!! Remember these and you will do okay! Pauls lovely wife ALI

Re: New Job Kinda
 

Thanks for the advice Pauls lovely wife ALI . Well if i get it and hurt myself will u be able to give me some treatment lol:D .

Re: New Job Kinda
 

Just read your post.
Good luck with the job. I hope it all goes well for you.
And even if it doesnt work out, just think of it as another experience and that it isnt the end of the world.
Good luck.

Re: New Job Kinda
 

Thanks for the kind words Halcyon :tu:

Re: New Job Kinda
 

:D you aint got nowt to lose , go for it :tu:

Re: New Job Kinda
 

Well i did the medial today .I think it went ok i have great hearing good lungs blood pressure is spot on but my sight was not as good at it should have been :( .But the doc said its just really to tell they u arent blind . Oh and iam 2 kg over weight ffs :( 6 foot tall and i weighed 92.2 kg . So its just a waiting game .

Re: New Job Kinda
 

putting those figures into a Body Mass Index (BMI) calculator gives about 27.5 - anything over 25 is considered overweight, so you are slightly over - however it does say it is not very accurate for 'athletic' people due to their higher muscle mass.

- the good result is the blood pressure - mine is high, even though I am bordering on underweight for my height.

I think you will be ok :tu:

Re: New Job Kinda
 

As long as you're not colour blind and 2 kilos overweight is nothing thats about 4.4 lbs.

As homealone said, there shouldn't be a problem. :)

Re: New Job Kinda
 

do you know when you will find out ???????? :)

Re: New Job Kinda
 

Well the course starts on the 14th march so i hope to hear this week or beginning of next week fingers crossed:D

Re: New Job Kinda
 

Hi kind ppl well today i recived word about the trainning course . And guess what I GOT IN YEEEEEEEEEEE HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. Start the trainning on the 14 th march cant wait . Now all i have to do it train myself to get out of bed before 11 am now :p:. Thanks for all your advice and support it will not be forgotten.


Reagrds
MovieMad

Re: New Job Kinda
 

chuffed to bits for you my mate , take all the positives out of this thread and bin all the negative ones :tu: :D :D :D

Re: New Job Kinda
 

Good stuff matey :tu:

Just try and make the best of it - as has been said, if you don't enjoy it, you've had the training and use that to your advantage if you're looking for something else.

Hope it works out alright :)

Re: New Job Kinda
 

Thank you for your :tu: kind words .

Re: New Job Kinda
 

Well iam into my second week now in the training so far so good first week was all paper work etc safety gas testing manual handling ladder saftey stuff like that . Second week i have been out on the job the week went very very fast and i got a tenner for adding an ext line into a bedroom hehehe Cash of course . ;) Any of u guys know the correct siginals u know normally i try get it arounf +8 +8-6 and them dam things u have to add on with out running back ans fro the cad them db things equalisers and something else . Guy showing me is very good bloke and of course the first 1 he asked me to have a go at was a dead d :dozey: and i broke his croning tool lol . I did not know there was as many starnge ppl out there hehehe and some fine looking birds ...

Re: New Job Kinda
 

Check the group intranet it gives recommended levels at various parts of the slope :)

If you can do as much work as possible in the cabinet and leave as little trailling on the end of a modem / set top box (reading about engineers stuffing 13dB of attenuation on the back of cable modems :( ) you is good :) Though get em in the right tap in the first place and there's a good part of it done!

Re: New Job Kinda
 

IIRC mate, the signal levels should be +4db/+4db/-4db. But its been a while since I had to worry about that, thank feck. ;)

So which supervisor are you training under? If its Alex tell him Brian says ''hello you short arsed gimp''. :angel:

Re: New Job Kinda
 

hey earl well we dont realy have a sup yet but it is mehall that has been looking after me . Iam out with a guy called peter 1 man crew and was out with a guy sid . I will tell alex that u said hello snap iam called brian also lol . tthink iam going two man crew next week dreading the thought from what the 1 man guys have been telling me :shocked: .But so far i love it the day goes so quick and 1 day i finished at 12 noon lol that was cool .Thanks for the dbs freq iam kinda lost but i will get there .Driving round belfast is another nightmare that i may have to cross sometime .

Re: New Job Kinda ---- I GOT THE JOB
 

Thanks for everyones info that has been given to me over the last few weeks it has all payed off as from friday morning after exam and interview i have been given a job working for ntl ye ha million thank yous .

Regards Brian

Re: New Job Kinda ---- I GOT THE JOB
 

Nice one - congratulations, double whammy, really - you got the job you were after, NTL got someone who sounds like they are keen to get on & do it right, which will be good for the customers :tu:

Re: New Job Kinda ---- I GOT THE JOB
 

Haha give it a while and those thank yous will turn into f**k yous :angel:

Re: New Job Kinda ---- I GOT THE JOB
 

Lmao you maybe right m8 .......;)