The job can also be physically exhausting and surprisingly dangerous.
Most installs involve hauling a 28-foot ladder through snow, ice, mud, steep driveways, and uneven terrain while being under constant pressure to move faster. You spend a lot of time drilling through old homes, crawling through attics and basements, and being exposed to dust, mold, insulation, animal waste, asbestos-like materials, and whatever else has been sitting inside these houses for the last 50 years. Trailer homes are especially rough — crawling underneath them while avoiding sewage leaks and exposed wiring becomes oddly normal after a while.
Safety equipment feels like an afterthought. Dust masks were cheap and rarely restocked properly. You’re expected to just “get the job done” regardless of the conditions.
Customers can also make the day much harder than it needs to be. Many refuse to put dogs away, and I was bitten multiple times over the years, including by a German Shepherd that left a permanent scar on my calf. Even when customers do put the dog away, you often listen to barking and yelling for the next three hours while squeezed behind a TV stand breathing in 15 years of dust from old receivers they suddenly decide to clean the moment you touch them.
The scheduling is one of the worst parts. A job estimated at one hour can easily turn into four, but routes are rarely adjusted to reflect reality. It’s common to start at 7:15 AM and still be working close to midnight with only the legally required 30-minute break. The unspoken expectation is that you eat while driving between jobs to stay on schedule.
When you start, they hand you two red bottles — one for water and one to urinate in — because stopping too often or using customer bathrooms is frowned upon. That pretty much tells you everything about the culture.
Another major part of the job is in-home sales. Technicians are expected to sell a minimum amount of add-ons during service calls, and that often becomes more important than the technical work itself. A lot of the customer base is elderly people who trust whatever the technician tells them. You end up feeling pressured to push overpriced accessories, protection plans, or products people neither wanted nor needed — often items they could buy elsewhere cheaper and better. The sales pressure gets exhausting because management mainly cares about the numbers, regardless of whether the products genuinely help the customer.
You’re monitored constantly through GPS and performance metrics. Management talks about “teamwork,” but everyone is ranked against each other individually. The lowest-performing technicians are singled out in meetings, micromanaged, and sometimes placed on performance improvement plans before they’ve even properly finished training.
The company vehicle also becomes part of your personal life. You store the van and extra inventory at home, often filling your garage with equipment. Maintenance usually ends up happening on your days off, even after marathon workdays. And if the company decides not to approve major repairs, you just keep driving a van with warning lights on, leaks, or chemical smells filling the cab.
Overall, it’s a job where you learn a lot quickly and develop resilience, but the workload, safety concerns, and pressure can wear people down fast. It often feels less like a technical career and more like survival with a ladder.
