Sorry Venting

mweckler

Ok, my wife's grandmother lives next door to us, she has a dog, we have a dog and for years we have shared an invisible fence. 3 or 4 years ago we put up a wooden fence for the kids but since we do not have direct access to our back yard from the house we use the invisible fence to just let the dogs out and they are trained to go into the backyard on their own. Well The company we used for the fence is just terrible, and they are the only branch of this company in our area which means for the last 7 years when we have fence trouble they are the only ones who can fix the fence. There have been many problems but none worse than last night. A couple weeks ago the wife's grandma got a new dog and decided she did not like the layout of her fence so she wanted to have a new line ran and get her own box, which would give us our own line as well. I get off work and taking care of the kids and see the fence guy doing his thing next door, no big deal. I let the dogs into the yard close the gate because I had a feeling that the invisible fence was not working. An hour or so goes by the wife gets home I am about to start making dinner when I get a knock at the door. A little thing about my house it was built in the 60's it had those glass tube fuses in it until a few months ago when we finally were able to upgrade to a more modern breaker box, but we do not have outlets on the outside of our house, and do not have a garage either. I have 2 sheds for storage and that is it. So the fence guy knocks on the door and I open it and he asks if he woke me up, I said no, he responds with oh wow I'm sorry. Wow ok great way to start things, with an insult. I then tell him I want this box plugged into my laundry room, he tells me that he needs to run 2 wires to the box, so he wants to put it in my shed. I told him I have no power outside short of this little power strip I use for christmas lights that is ran off extension cords in my crawl space. So the guy just stops and looks at me like I have 4 heads. So we go back and forth, I then say ok well wince you have this stuff to do anyway since I have the fence I only need the side of my driveway and the front half of my house still with the fence, thinking that it would make things easier on him. Well boy was I wrong, he started telling me that he needs to connect the old fence run new lines, because he needs to complete the circuit, which I get but. So we go back and forth with him telling me that he will just come back another day. Well this company is like pulling teeth to have them come out and do anything with the fence, and we leave on vacation tomorrow for a week. I tell him repeatedly that we are going on vacation and between tonight and Saturday I have someone coming to the house to show them how everything works, I also have to pick up my oldest daughter, and pack and a whole other list of things and I will not have time to stop and go over all this with him. He then tells me well I will just use my machine and cut a trench along your fence and run new lines. I then reminded him that JULIE ( a company in Illinois that marks all buried cables, and gas lines before you start digging) has not marked my yard, and since he literally had just cut my wife's grandmother's AT&T phone line that I do not need my lines cut as well. So he then says he will call Julie and he will come back Saturday, I then remind him I AM LEAVING ON VACATION!!!!!!! I have known he is not the brightest bulb in the lamp from previous dealings with him and I am not one to make comments like that, but after 3 hours of feeding this man ideas on how to do his job, which he and his wife are the owners of this branch of the company I was getting frustrated and started to binge, and I could not even binge in peace because every time I would try he would knock on the door again. So I ask him hey you just dug a trench for the grandma's line can't you just run the new line in the same trench this way we do not have to worry about cutting any more non fence cables??? He looks at me and says I do not know, no one has ever asked me that before, and I am not sure. Then he says again he will leave and come back, which prompts me to remind him about vacation and leaving and and everything else. So we go around and around again for another hour or so, I then tell him ok go connect the old cable, run it on top of the trench plug in the box and lets just see if the line works that way? He finally agrees to this, and guess what THE LINE WORKED FINE, and even if it did not work fine it is ran NEXT TO A 6 FOOT TALL PRIVACY FENCE!!!!!! which means none of my dogs, or the grandma's dog could get over it on their own. So it is getting dark and we need to now find a place for the box in my house I say we can use a vent and run the lines through my crawl space, he then tells me that he does not feel like crawling around down there so I will have to do it myself, again I am shocked but I am tired I am hungry and I am beyond frustrated at this point I go change I run the stupid cable under the house, I go tell him it is done. He then has the gall to say well now that you are dirty how about giving me a hand and while I open the trench you push the line into it. So because I just want this whole thing to be done I start pushing the line into the dirt along my fence. As we are burying the lines he makes some comment about the interest rates because his wife is a real estate agent and makes a comment about the presidential election and asks me who I am voting for, I politely reply with there are 2 topics I do not discuss and that is religion and politics, he keeps prodding me to talk about it, I firmly say no because it causes too much dispute if you are on opposites sides so leave it alone. It is dark out at this point and I had offered to get a flashlight which he said he did not need, but after watching him fumble in the dark I got one to speed things up. We make it to the front of the house get the line where it needs to be, then I say ok well how long will it take to hook up the box, because it is 8 and my kids go to bed at 8. He tells me that I can hook up the box, it is easy just 2 wires. I say uhhh no I pulled the wires up through the crawl space so he can connect them, he finally agrees and does it. I tell him he will get my bill for my labor in the mail, he says he will just throw it away, I tell him now that we are done I am going to go eat dinner, he then asks me what I made him, I reply with well nothing because I spent all night out here with him. I said have a good night and a safe trip home, went inside and wanted to slam my head into a wall until I forgot everything that happened over the last 3.5 hours.


TL:DR - Had my brain hurt from dealing with the owner operator of an invisible fence company, who clearly does not know how to do his job, and also needs lessons in customer service.

RespectTheKitty