My day as I remembered

2025-03-10 19:05

Monday morning starts with our weekly Health & Safety meeting, followed by our 2-week work lookahead on the whiteboard. It is the only meeting for the week. Coming from around 20 meetings a week at my previous job, this is a freakin blessing. For context, I'm an Installation Technician, or Integrator, or Integrated Systems Techncian and only been in the field 4 months now.

H&S tackled a few pending tasks to complete - ladder and vehicle inspections, online modules, an error in timesheets. We then did our weekly "professional development" section where we discuss a topic anyone wishes to bring to the table. Today was about the use of shielded or unshielded patch lead cables that connect our devices to the Cat6A (shielded) cable that runs back to the network hubs. We decided to use shielded patch leads going forward, or STP (shielded twisted pair), rather than UTP (unshielded twisted pair). This will continue the spec all the way to the device. Nice. We also discussed issues with the large size of security camera connector housings. Pain in the butt when they're mounted flush onto walls and there's no cavity space behind to shove them. Anyway, I like these professional development chats. I pick up a lot of useful information.

The 2-week lookahead looked pretty light, though that can change quickly. Today we had to go to the out-of-town pre-wire job we're halfway through. Another pre-wire coming up, and a few snag items on jobs closing out.

We did the remaining ladder inspections, and our vehicle inspections, then we were on our way. En-route I had to pick up 3 rolls of Cat6A for the pre-wire as we were running short. I got some trade-seals too, as we've been chewing through them. The site was busy - 13 trade vehicles parked out front - but it's a big house, so we managed to not step over anyone's toes, and vice verca (and I doubt I even saw 13 people). There's a crane on site, and when we arrived it was being used to lug wheelbarrows of wet concrete to one of the upper levels. A few of us below made sure we weren't under it as it looked like it could've tipped any moment swaying with the movement. No such drama occurred.

We ran a bunch of Cat6A (for WiFi, TV, and spares), RG6 (for satellite dish) and Cat5e STP (for satellite dish internet) cables throughout the house (and roof). It doesn't sound like much, but it took us most of the rest of the day to do this. The roof penetrations required pull-wire to get the cables through kinked conduit. A few decisions and tweaks were made regarding moved network hubs and layout of the house. Printed schedules were updated. I felt like I was getting the hang of things today... ladder placement at corners or other strategic points help (we have to avoid rubbing and burning through high-voltage cable, sharp penetration edges (why we use trade-seals) etc.), leaving enough slack in the right areas, using or not-using anchors and velcro.

Travel back home and Dad coming round for dinner. No running or riding today - having a rest day, which tends to be how Mondays go. I want to do a bit of programming later and read my book.

That was my day.