I had a joyous reunion with friends who lived in Aruba, and left to live in Colorado, USA.
They are here on Vacation, restoring their home, which had been rented long-term, and damaged.
They have been busy contacting all service-providers and urging them to finish projects, within one month.
It’s hard in Aruba, everything is complicated, they confided.
Then they added: Let us give you an example, if as Land Aruba you buy an excellent bottle of wine but you run out of money to buy a bottle opener, you put down the wine and start saving for the bottle opener purchase. By the time you collect enough money to get a bottle opener, the wine, which had been stored in less that perfect conditions, in spoiled.
The conversation we had was painful. You settle for inferior service everywhere, he said, people do not carry the weight of their responsibilities here, yet no one complains, they accept the half-baked goods. You can do so much better, he concluded.
Which reminds me.
After a series of phone calls and conversations I was told by a super-friendly operator that the Fiber Optics team will come to prepare my home for the future, on August 29th. How many TVs do you own, I was asked. Hearing the answer the super-friendly operator announced they would be staying at my address the whole day, from 8 to 4:30pm. It’s a big job, she added.
This Fiber Optics installation is an invasive procedure, because all existing phone and internet cables and lines are to be ripped off, new ones installed.
I was looking forward. My outer walls were crawling with miles of cables and wires, there since the 60s/70s, old telephone lines, dead internet connections, even the defunct satellite infrastructure, all killed and left to hang, a long time ago.
Would be nice to clean up.
On the designated day, a crew arrived, all smiles, shaven and showered, friendly, well-spoken, uniformed and equipped, EIGHT of them. I think there were a total of 4 vehicles and probably 10 people, in and out of the house during the day, the last one left at 6pm.
Upon arrival they attempted to find the fiber optic box allegedly left behind by the people who dug out the trench in front of my house, who hit the water line, who worked for weeks up and down the street.
No such box was found.
A supervisor arrived and he determined the house was never fitted with fiber optics because they ran out of cable materials, but the crew should proceed anyway to outfit the house interior, then the exterior fiber optics infrastructure can be laid at a later stage.
If that is the case, will they have to dig out the sidewalk again, to actually lay the cable, I wondered. We’re unclear about it, was the answer.
Over the next hours 3 crew members worked diligently, the rest of the guys checked game scores, every time I looked, snuck peeks at games, one chatted on his phone. They played Jeon on YouTube, and did their best to pass the time, doing some work as instructed by their leader. They wrapped up around 4, leaving unfinished, unconnected wires behind.
The three motivated ones, directed by a knowledgeable leader finally managed to run all lines, they called in two more people for support, then I was left with speedy internet, bruised walls, dust, and a ton of discarded electronic cables.
I agree it was a big job, the house is old, but do we have to run Cable TV into every room?? In the kitchen, or the office, yes, perhaps, but in the bedrooms?
We no longer watch cable the way we use to, we are glued to tablets and phones, we stream, and would have been perfectly content if they just gave us high speed internet, laid the exterior infrastructure, first, then the interior.
I am not complaining, overall they did a good job, am just thinking how much more efficient this outfit could be.
