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David Sands | all galleries >> Galleries >> Photo a Day 2014 > Over Qualified
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06-Oct-2014 David Sands

Over Qualified

Cable guys, love em, hate em or somewhere in-between they are the face of the evil empire- Time Warner or whoever you may use. Your service is only as good as the guy who knocks on your door.

Today, my preconceived notion of the "cable" guy was blown to shreds in the first three seconds of meeting this young guy. I needed an outlet moved in my office and immediately he keyed in on my former military status and told me he just got out of the Army 7 months ago. He was in the Rangers and had a quiet confidence about him. He finished the task at hand in a matter of minutes, not hours like the last clown that was dispatched here. We got to chatting about his service and what he "wants to be doing" instead of what he's doing today with the Cable Co. He lamented on the fact that his coworkers are generally lazy, unmotivated and lacking direction. He said he left the Army after 5 tours overseas as he's tired of being deployed in a constant forward state...

Yeah, he's way over qualified to be stringing cable. I wish they'd hire this guy to manage the field folks and get them all doing things as efficient as he did them.


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Dennis Camp08-Oct-2014 00:04
Motivated people will fine their way.
Alan K06-Oct-2014 21:36
As per your past PADs you have a US Navy flag flying outside your front door so he wouldn't need to be the most gifted field intel analyst to make that leap of logic!
If he's done 5 tours as a Ranger then the quiet confidence thing is unsurprising and yes, my bet is that he should be doing way better for himself than stringing cables. I hope he gets to what he wants to be doing, but the way the US economy is sometimes you need to take what you can get which is, I'm betting, why he is where he is. A lot of people in my region are doing the same. I could write an entire polemic on the world economy and why the west is what it (now) is and as a consequence why ex-Rangers are stuck stringing cables, but another time, perhaps.
It might have been interesting to see how this one would have worked stopped down a little to expand the depth of field and get the hand more sharply focused or, if you're moving the cable up, get the blur to be more of a motion one from a longer exposure than a DOF one. Nonetheless the shot still makes the point of the story which is the main thing.