Telkom techies

J

Joker

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I was just thinking, I read alot of the telkom technicians that come to ppls houses, I’ve had quite a few experiences with them aswell, and have always noticed that they have a general vibe of "we're on your side", and they agree with your complaints although it goes against telkom in general most of the time. I was just thinking if actually they are told to behave like this?

Im not too sure why they would do this, cause it doesn’t make me appreciate telkom moreso. But just noticed that I've never met or heard of a stern and authorative 'by the book' telkom technician.

Maybe I’m imagining this? ...
 
working for telkom is a experiance on its own almost no one there wants to be there and morale does not exist ... the techies are screwed over badly by management and it does show through ...

remember they know the frustrations of dealing with telkom they do it every day ....

:)
 
I live almost on the corner of a road where there is a box mounted on the pavement, which is obviously a sub-distribution point for diverse cabling in our area. Without fail, throughout the day there is at least one of those white breadbox vans parked there, with sometimes up to five vehicles there simultaneously.

I have made a point of sauntering over occasionally to chat (nastily, with an ice-cold beer in my hands on a hot day), to ask what they're up to. The stock answers initially have either been 'ons toets die lyne, meneer', or 'my baas het my gestuur om nommers te check, meneer' - after being assured with a sympathetic response, however, their initial surliness is invariably replaced with a real opening-up of their grievances, the most common one being that their management apparently does not want to listen to them!

Of course, the complaints range from unreasonable working hours, to a lack of training and skills transfer, to being under-paid, and so on - however, there is one constant theme running through all of this: a definite problem with employer/employee relationships. I find it absolutely incomprehensible that an employer will not consciously address this kind of problem, but instead exacerbates the issue by adopting a confrontational approach with its employees and their representatives (unions)! Methinks I would not work for Telkrap, not for all the money in the world (or all the bandwidth, for that matter)...
 
I will work for Telkom, but only for ALL the money in the world... [;)]

Then I will buy Telkom, put everybody in this forum in control (through an electronic voting system) and put a line into every home at cost price. The line will be active to receive calls. To make calls will be dirt cheap and the company will make profit on volume, not on overpricing!

I will also buy a couple of ministers (seems to be the only way to get them to do something) to get the laws changed in order to allow free competion and high tech will become part of every SAfrican's life. If it can connect directly to the USA or Europe or anywhere else without using any SA telco, then go for it!

[8D]

### What we need in South Africa is cheap 24/7, always on Internet for under R300 a month. ###
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by antowan</i>
<br />I will work for Telkom, but only for ALL the money in the world... [;)]

Then I will buy Telkom, put everybody in this forum in control (through an electronic voting system) and put a line into every home at cost price. The line will be active to receive calls. To make calls will be dirt cheap and the company will make profit on volume, not on overpricing!

I will also buy a couple of ministers (seems to be the only way to get them to do something) to get the laws changed in order to allow free competion and high tech will become part of every SAfrican's life. If it can connect directly to the USA or Europe or anywhere else without using any SA telco, then go for it!

[8D]

### What we need in South Africa is cheap 24/7, always on Internet for under R300 a month. ###
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Antowan for president!



----------------
United we stand!
----------------
 
Why don't we just stage a coup at Melkbos, declare UDI, occupy the main cable landing site and sell the bandwidth to any body that wants it?

I guess its to late to have Sir Mark finance it though. VBG.
 
I know two techie's at Telkom, the one recently resigned and the other one is/was looking forward to retrenchment, apparently the latter mentioned techie would get in to the office in the morning clock in and go home and sleep, 10 minutes before end of day he would return and clock out. One would think that the manager would notice these things but he isnt around either, im guessing they all do something similar.

As for telkom employees in general, I would say the majority of them are slightly dodgy, when our ADSL line was installed when ADSL was initially launched and the modem prices were insane we made an idle comment to the techie: "Damn. These prices are high... thats ALOT of money!", his response was "Hey, give me R900.00 cash and I'll give you this modem, don't forget to say its a private modem if asked." I don't usually support corruption but hey... It's telkom, this guy was screwing them and I decided to help out.

Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away
if your car could go straight upwards."
--Sir Fred Hoyle
 
Some techies may be shady, but some are really good, persistent and friendly. I have an analogue line running to my house which connects me to the office and I've had it for about 6 years now. It's been on and off, but mostly usable.

During March it had a really bad run and my line was off for about 50% of the time. A techie was assigned to the task and he relentlessly hunted the problem down, even going as far as obtaining an inverter and driving from dist. box to dist. box with a modem to try and isolate the problem. The techies on the other side of the line went as far as moving the entire hybrid to site, switching to a doubled-up cable pair and charging me for a single one.

At the end of the day the problem was fixed and I was happy with a stable analogue line again. When the bill arrived, Telkom had credited me rental for the entire month of March.

I was a happy customer and I got to know some of the techies well. Two days ago a new techie came to install my ADSL line. There was some initial confusion about the existing line not being a telephone line and that I had a spare cable-pair available, but after it was explained, the techie went and did the installation without too many problems. There was an unfortunate clash between Telkom ADSL and Telkom Data when they were fighting for the same jumper at the exchange, but that was sorted and now both lines are working fine. (The analogue line will be decomissioned when I'm happy with the ADSL line - which I am).

--deckert
 
I've had alot of experiences with Telkom techies, all different.

At my old place the lines very often got broken by trees, and we even had a few problems with corrosion of the old copper. The techies were always helpfull. Even had a big problem when a large tree fell over into the center of the streets phone line, and uprooted the poles for 500 meters! Waited a long time for them to rebuild the phone connections, but it got done and they were amazingly clear after that.

When I moved last year, the job they did was shocking. I had some rather amature non talkative dude who rocked up with his girlfriend or whatever, the job was shocking I had all sorts of random bundle connectors half falling out of the wall (I rate I could have tapped a few lines from my house!). The jacks were not mounted to the wall with screws, or to the skirting. No 2 nails and a large hammer into the plasterd wall sorted that out.

When I moved again the job they did was good. Stuff was actualy mounted with screws!

- Colin Alston
[email protected]

"Getting traffic shaping right is easy and can be summed up in one word: Dont." -- George Barnett
 
hey antowan...
I swear i see Telkom techs behind every tree these days including in this forum [8D]
Tis weird that since registering here way back ive had to change my nick on at least four different occasions and STILL have the privacy report icon on the bottom bar?
Having decided to speak out at last regarding the telkom phisherman and hackers who have followed me for four years, i figger ive ruffled someones feathers more than just slightly?
I have on average five disconnects over a weekend on Telkoms Callmore option...go figger.
I think they are pretty comfortable with most of the complaints posted here and can ignore them ... but when i start goin on about the Information that is sold throughout Telkoms vast web? Then someone gets quite hot under the collar... ive the NeoTrace printouts to show Telkoms TopBrass has graced me with several Trojans and those found only after we discovered Neo Trace... eish..... interesting though not so?

WretchedToad [:D]



<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by VQuest</i>
<br /><blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by antowan</i>
<br />I will work for Telkom, but only for ALL the money in the world... [;)]

Then I will buy Telkom, put everybody in this forum in control (through an electronic voting system) and put a line into every home at cost price. The line will be active to receive calls. To make calls will be dirt cheap and the company will make profit on volume, not on overpricing!

I will also buy a couple of ministers (seems to be the only way to get them to do something) to get the laws changed in order to allow free competion and high tech will become part of every SAfrican's life. If it can connect directly to the USA or Europe or anywhere else without using any SA telco, then go for it!

[8D]

### What we need in South Africa is cheap 24/7, always on Internet for under R300 a month. ###
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Antowan for president!



----------------
United we stand!
----------------
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
 
Personally I think the Telkom techies are great to have a chat with, I've always had lekker conversations with them.. they all do agree with things I talk about and they offer reasons and other information which I find interesting and we always have a laugh ;) Shame the pressure is really on with the vehicle satellite tracking and the cameras they are installing to watch workers.. nice place to work.. one good thing Telkom does do though is offer their staff loans, so if you are blacklisted for example and no one will lend you money you can go to Telkom and ask for one.

<font color="navy"><font size="1"><b>Where others have progress, we have Telkom.</b>
Hellkom website - www.hellkom.co.za</font id="size1"></font id="navy">
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"> if you are blacklisted for example<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Something that Telkom regularly does to people who they decide "owes them money".

- Colin Alston
[email protected]

"Getting traffic shaping right is easy and can be summed up in one word: Dont." -- George Barnett
 
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