OFF-TOPIC could today be any stranger?

[nomadjanet]

Today at 7:30AM at our company, my dispatcher called me from her personal cell phone. This in itself was strange so I was prepared for some type of issue. She explained that our phone service was out at the office & she was working on a solution. She just wanted me to know that she was leaving the answering service on the client lines and they were going to call her on her cell phone until she found a way to get the phones restore. At 8:30 she called back & let me know the phone company rep found the issue: someone had dug up approx 200 feet of main phone cable along the main highway and stole it. All business clients on the highway were without service including internet service as our T1 line was part of the bundeled cable that was stolen. The girls are handeling the office on their personal cell phones and communicating with the tech's on direct connect our busiess goes on. What is going on in our city when someone digs up 200 feet of cable along side a 6 lane divided highway and not one even notices? Why would a person take such a chance? Is this a reflection on our economy or on our culture?
Janet

 

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[Zvolen]

Today at 7:30AM at our company, my dispatcher called me from her personal cell phone. This in itself was strange so I was prepared for some type of issue. She explained that our phone service was out at the office & she was working on a solution. She just wanted me to know that she was leaving the answering service on the client lines and they were going to call her on her cell phone until she found a way to get the phones restore. At 8:30 she called back & let me know the phone company rep found the issue: someone had dug up approx 200 feet of main phone cable along the main highway and stole it. All business clients on the highway were without service including internet service as our T1 line was part of the bundeled cable that was stolen. The girls are handeling the office on their personal cell phones and communicating with the tech's on direct connect our busiess goes on. What is going on in our city when someone digs up 200 feet of cable along side a 6 lane divided highway and not one even notices? Why would a person take such a chance? Is this a reflection on our economy or on our culture?
Janet

I would say both

 

[LightHouse]

Stripped copper is $2 a pound!

 

[Diane Kennedy]

Oh Janet...don't get me started!

Before we took our company completely virtual, we had a property in the historic Phoenix downtown for our office.

TWICE someone got on the roof of the building, cut the power lines and pulled wire out of the building. It wasn't copper, but we assume they thought it was. At most, they would have gotten about $30 worth of copper according to our calculations. Instead, they risked their lives, got nothing, and put us out of business TWICE for 4-5 days each time. PLUS the repair cost was approx $3500 each time.

I kept saying that I feel like taping a $100 bill to the front door when we leave every night, with a note to please don't try to steal our wire.

Because I'm an eternal optimistic, I do have a lesson from that. It was the final straw that made us take the company virtual. I was hanging on to a building I didn't need, a lot of excess building costs and additional personnel by staying in a physical location. We dropped costs by $350,000 per year by going virtual. PLUS we have happier staff working from home with flex hours.

 

[nomadjanet]

Diane this scares me if it happened to you twice, this might be a pattern forming.
It would be lovely to go virtual the problem is we have to move product & the technicians have to come into a central location at least a few times a week to restock. We have tried to get our suppliers to be our restocking centers but to date it has not been a good fit, as technology improves in our industry this may happen for us yet.
Your story reminds me of one we have from the coast house. We bought a waterfront property just outside a small Texas town. We had some low spots in our yard right down by the waterfront and my DH was going to backfill this himself. This was of course just a ploy to be able to play on the backhoe. I called ahead to the biggest advertiser of topsoild in the area on Monday and told the guy at the material yard that I wanted a tandem load of topsoil delivered on Thursday, as we would be coming into town. He said Ok or at the very latest Friday 1st thing. Thursday came & went and no dirt, I was not surprised, as I know coast people work when they feel like it not when you want service. The next morning at 8 AM my DH was chomping at the bit to get to work, I called the dirt guy, Oh, he's on his way was the response..... At 10AM when he had not showed up I called back, Oh, he's on your street he should be pulling up any minute.... At 1Pm when I called she said, well he must have stopped for lunch.... At 4PM when I called she said, What? You mean he's not there? At 7:30PM when I called I told her, I'm leaving to go out to dinner, there's a bucket in the yard with $500.00 cash tell him to dump the dirt where the bucket is and keep the change. The man never even showed up to steal the $500.00, that’s Rockport TX. My DH made a deal with a neighbor that wanted a pond in his yard, he dug it up & used his soil to fill in our low spots, we never did get that delivery or a call back. Maybe he was financially free and didn't need the money.

 

[SteveO]

A law was recenty put into place in AZ that places restrictions on the metals coming into the recycling yards. i am not sure of the details but I think people have to give ID's and fingerprints for certain amounts.

Recyclers were complaning that business has dropped considerably.

Gotta luv the internet. Here is a link to an article.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/0909biz-mr-recycle0909.html

 

[Bilgefisher]

Back in the shipyards, there was a guy up in norfolk who was stealing 1 foot sections of anchor cable used for the drunk lines. (Lines to tie the ship to the pier). They were 300lb's a piece. His act was considered sabotage and got him a stay at the one bunk Hilton in Fort Leavonworth. Maybe he should have stuck to cable lines. I have also heard that many metal recyclers no longer are allowed to accept kegs. People are making money, even with the deposit, to sell them to metal recyclers. Sorry, this is the best link I have Keg stealing

Metal prices are really jumping.

 

[Z5 FILMS]

My friend who's a cop arrests people all the time for tearing up AC units to get the copper. And the aluminum crossing arms at railroad crossings are popular with the crackheads too.

Nothing suprises me.

 

[ToddW]

Meth heads do that here too.

They open up lamp posts on the street to take the wire, and also take the guard rails in some places for the AL.

:bgh: