AHL: When Your Boss Wants Shortcuts, Choose Integrity And Documentation

We return with industry updates and a stack of field questions, then dig into failed tests, fiber versus copper, PoE planning, hospital retrofit estimating, and the QA habits that prevent rework. The throughline is simple: document, communicate, and draw a hard line at safety and code.

• Saving original test files and reading diagnostics
• Verifying calibration and retesting comparable links
• Choosing copper or fiber based on EMI, distance, and PoE
• Proposing compliant alternatives when pushed to cut corners
• Breaking hospital retrofits into zones and shifts
• Building bid assumptions and weekly communication plans
• Pulling four‑pair and matching connectors for PoE reliability
• Running dual cables for wireless capacity and resilience
• Establishing a QA process with 10 percent checks and photos
• Assigning work by crew with traceable sign‑offs
• Scheduling postmortems to capture and share lessons

Make sure you pay attention to my feed on December 6th. I have a huge announcement coming out.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome Back & Live Show Setup
• 2:30 Acronym Of The Day: MPOE
• 5:30 Schedule Shift, Announcements, Upcoming Guests
• 8:45 Community Check‑In & Drinks
• 10:40 Q1: Proving Failed Test Results
• 19:30 Documentation, Calibration, And Retesting
• 24:00 Q2: Fiber Vs Copper In Small Offices
• 31:30 Bandwidth, EMI, And PoE Constraints

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Wednesday night, 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. That can only mean one thing. Live after hours with your favorite RCDD. You know that's me. Chuck Bells R C D. You know I'm your favorite. I'm back. I took off about three weeks. So I just want everybody to know that, well, had a lot of stuff going on. One week I had a funeral to attend, another week I had a vacation, and another week I wasn't feeling so hot. So I took off about three weeks. Several of you reached out to me to make sure that I'm okay. And yes, I am okay. So I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Um, why is that not showing anything? Hmm, that's weird. That is weird. Gotta love streaming software. It's never Kaylin's in the house! Caitlin, how you doing, my friend? So, acronym for the day. This acronym was submitted by somebody on TikTok because I got on I usually get on TikTok 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes before the show. And I talked to people on TikTok, and I didn't have an acronym picked out. So I asked the guys on the guys and gals on TikTok, give me an acronym. And the acronym they gave me was M-P-O-E. M P O E. Tell me in the chat box if you know what M P O E stands for. Go ahead. I'll give you I'll give you some time to think about that. Anybody? Anybody? M P-O-E? Okay. It stands for minimum point of entry. Minimum point of entry. I know you knew it because you're the one who suggested it. And that's your background. That's where you work. So yes, MPOE. Oh, I forgot to turn on the chat box. So let's see who's talking in the chat box. Tyler's in the house. Hey, Tyler, good to have you back, my friend. Yes, as I was saying, I took off three weeks, uh, funeral, vacation, and then one week I wasn't feeling so hot. So, but I'm back. I am back. Um, let me ask you a question. The wife and I were talking, and we're thinking about changing the podcast schedule. So currently, right now, I do the podcast episode on Monday nights, and then the live stream on Wednesday nights. Tell me in the chat box, how would you feel if I flipped them? If I did the live stream on Monday nights and then I did the podcast recorded episodes on Wednesday nights. Tell me in the chat box. Do you think that'd be okay? Do you think that would not be okay? Let me know in the chat box how you feel about that. Because I'm just kind of curious. Mark just joined the house. Hello, Mark. Hello, Mark. Um lots of great stuff coming down the pike. I got three, three big announcements coming up. Three big announcements. One I will be announcing the first week of December. So on December 6th. On December 6th, make sure you pay attention to my feed. I have a huge announcement coming out. A huge announcement. I'm super excited about it. And then I have two additional opportunities in 2026 that I might be taking up, which would involve international travel for the podcast. International travel. That would be so cool. So cool. Lots of great stuff. Lots of great stuff coming up. I got a lot of interviews scheduled and lined up. I got an interview on using a temp workforce. I got an interview set up on these three young entrepreneurs who I think are just setting the industry on fire. I still got to finalize the interview on men's health. I gotta get that done this month because mut because November is men's health awareness month. Our industry, our industry is horrible, horrible on that kind of stuff. So there you go. Oh, I forgot to ask you. What are you drinking? What are you drinking? Chuck is drinking uh Zen tea because it's cold as cold outside here in Florida. It's it's with that cold snap is hurting everybody. So I got Zen tea with honey and a uh and a um essential oil throat lozenge because I tend to project my voice and my voice gets hurts as well. So zen tea, tell me in a chat box what are you drinking tonight? I know Shotzi would be drinking a dyed Dr. Pepper if that's what he was doing. Uh liquid liquid IV, stay hydrated, folks. Absolutely, especially in your area, Mr. Anthony, especially in your area. So I got a show tonight. Uh because I haven't done a QA show in three weeks, maybe even longer, I have a whole bunch of questions. A whole bunch of questions. And I'm gonna try to get through them all tonight. Okay, trying to get through them all tonight. Again, if you have questions about installation, design, certification, project management, career path questions, send them to me and I will answer them on the live streams. Okay? Send them to me. Because if you're thinking it, I guarantee you somebody else in the low voltage industry is wanting to know that too. And you know, I didn't realize this, but you know, the podcast is really gaining a lot of momentum. A lot of momentum. I've had I've had so many people in the last two months tell me about how the podcast has they heard about they they mentioned it to somebody else. They go, Oh, yeah, well, I listen to the podcast. And there's a lot, a lot going on. So it's really gaining a lot of strength. Really gaining a lot of strength. So let's get on with these questions, okay? Question number one, and we got some great, great questions tonight. This one comes from Marcus.

unknown: 6:22

Right?

SPEAKER_00: 6:23

Marcus asked me, what is the fastest way to prove a failed certification test was the tester's fault, not mine? Okay, here's the problem. Marcus, I love the question. Absolutely love the question. Who are you trying to prove it to? Are you trying to prove it to your boss or are you trying to prove it to the customer? Because you didn't say that in the question. You didn't say that in the question. Now, whether it's the call the boss or the customer, my first tip keep the original test file. Keep the original test file. Make sure you matter of fact, I would download it onto your computer, put it in a project file, and make sure that you get you secure so it doesn't accidentally get deleted. Okay? Because as Ed, the old tech guy, would say, that is the birth record, the birth certificate. Birth certificate. Right? How long ago was your tester calibrated? Are you talking about my tester? It's due for calibration. I need to get with a um, it's due for calibration, actually. So oh I no, you're you're saying you're asking how to prove it. Exactly. Sorry, Anthony, you're right. So number one, I don't want to talk about don't get stuck in the mindset, okay, of trying to prove something. If something went wrong, own it, be forthright, be f be up forthright, forthright with it, and and make sure you tell the customer or your boss, hey, it failed. Don't it see when you say it prove it, and how do I prove it? That tells me that that that you might be trying to hide something, or you or you might have had an issue there. The the best thing is the facts are the facts. You know, if it's your boss, hey boss, for some reason this tester's failed this cable, but I think it's the tester. And here's why I think it's a tester, okay? All right, here's how I think it is. That's that's why you want to make sure that you keep juniors in the house, Daryl, the RCD house in there, prove is the wrong word, should be to verify your thought. Excellent, Daryl. That's exactly what I was just saying. Excellent. Great minds think alike, Daryl. Great minds think alike, right? So keep that keep that original documentation. Look at see a lot of technicians, and a lot of technicians, when their tester gives them the failed test result, they don't understand how to go look at those test results and find out why it is failing. Is it failing because of too much crosstalk? How do you look at the TDR scale on the thing and and understand which pairs are involved? So if you don't have that those skill sets, AEM, fluke, trend, softing, any one of those manufacturers will sit down with you and explain to you how to read and interpret that test result. Okay, because you know what? That failed test result might be because you are test you set the test right for Cat 6A, but you're using uh you had a Cat 5E connector. You or you could have, you know, um, you could have the mismatch set up in the tester. So it could be something you did in the process. So that's why I said save the original and then go back and look at the setup and compare it to what with what you have. If if everything was said correctly and you test it, and it still is giving you a failed test result, go find another cable, go find another cable about the same length, and test that cable.

unknown: 10:04

Right?

SPEAKER_00: 10:04

So the only so use the exact same patch. If you're doing channel testing, use the exact same patch cords, um, permanent link heads, you gotta use the same heads. So that way the only thing you're really changing is the permanent link. Does that problem still come up? Is it still showing a fail? If you got two in a row, there's a chance it might be something with the tester. It might be as as Anthony said, I didn't catch it at first. As Anthony said, it might be out of calibration. But in order for it to be, in order for it to fail because of being out of calibration, it has to be really wrong. Really, really, really wrong. Jehu's in the house. Uh okay, so I'm thinking to do perfect. Yeah, Jehu. Jehu made a really cool video where he took AI and did it. I want to know how he did that, so I can start doing that. It's really cool. So I'm available tomorrow, Jehu, up until about noon afternoon. I'm teaching a class. So, yeah. But if we don't get tomorrow, that's fine. When if we can, okay. Um, if you're trying to prove this to a customer, again, go back and look at the test results, test that other cable, those two processes are still the same. But also, you know, I'm a firm believer in documentation. Documentation, documentation, right? So make sure that take pictures of everything. Take pictures of the connectors, take pictures of the patch, take make sure you save that test result, right? Because that way, if it is if a if a dispute comes out of this, the person with the most documentation is gonna be most likely the one that wins. Most fails on test results are um the number one reason is because there's a problem with something, like the cable, connectors, something like that. But the bit next biggest problem is the tester wasn't set up correctly, or you're not using it correctly. Okay, question number two. This comes from Kelly Tran. Kelly wants to know, uh, most family most manufacturers have a way to test their units using a combination of a permalink and a channel. Yes, they do. They do have that. Absolutely. Uh so Kelly wants to know uh when I come Luby here, when should I choose fiber over copper in a small office? So Kelly wants to know when should she use fiber instead of copper? Fiber is always gonna be able to handle more bandwidth. Fiber is always gonna be more immune to EMI, electromagnetic interference. Okay, it's always gonna be more immune. But it's a different set of skill sets to be able to pull, terminate, and test the fiber. It's different equipment. Um, so generally speaking, even though there, even though there are companies out there who've done fiber to the desktop, they said small office, Ed. They said small office. So that tells me that that distance is not an issue here, right? Um, even though even though there's a lot of companies that do fiber to the desktop, see, in order to use the fiber optic cable in your LAN, you gotta take the the signal that comes out of the computer, comes out in an electron, right? It comes out as an electron. And then you gotta convert that electron to a photon to be able to go over the fiber, and then at the other end, you gotta change that photon back to an electron. Now you might have a fiber optic nick in that computer, but Ed could tell us what the prices of those are. I have a feeling that fiber optic NIC cards are probably more expensive than a copper NIC card. So for fiber to the desktop, typically, as long as you're under 100 meters and you don't have a need for high bandwidth, or you don't have a need because of EMI, copper's gonna be your best. I mean, Cat 6A cable can do 10 gig, 10 gig out to you know, the full 100 meters or 328 feet. That's a lot of data. Most networks, they might be 10 gig at the at the server, but they're not really pushing 10 gig out to the stations most of the time. There are some that do that, you know, but but the vast majority of network installs, they're gonna be tell me if I'm right or wrong, they're gonna be doing one gig, maybe two and a half gig, maybe, maybe five gig. I I don't know of any too many people that are pushing 10 gig to the workstation sitting at the thing. So copper is going to be do that. I learned how to do fiber last night. Very cool, Keith. Very cool. Um, do me a favor, where did you learn it? Where did you learn how to do fiber? That's that's a cool did you learn through the JATC or through something else, right? Also, you might want to consider their future growth, right? They might want to have more performance for the headroom. See, uh, the federal government likes using fiber sometimes uh for the desktop because of the security issue and some other things like that. And they know that they're gonna be able to push more bandwidth. But yeah, it really needs thought of this. I just thought of this. What if it's a device that needs PoE power over Ethernet? You are not going to push current across glass, so you're gonna have to use some type of a hybrid fiber copper solution to get that current to that PoE device. The PoE device can be a wireless access point or something like that. So lots of great, lots of great questions there. Question number three, and I love this question. I want everybody to weigh in on this question. This question was submitted to me by by Juan, and he wants to know my boss makes me cut corners to hit the bids. How do I push back without losing my job? Listen to that question again. Listen to this question. I want your response. Juan's boss wants him to cut corners so that the job can be profitable. He wants to know what to do. He wants to know what to do. So I'm gonna tell you, Juan, document, document, document. Document, document, document. You know, I was talking to some, I'm on the advisory board of this play, uh this company called uh Tech Plus, and we were talking today about techs and stuff like that. Your integrity is your resume. Your integrity is your resume. It truly is. But here's the thing. If you lose your job, are you are you gonna be evicted? If you lose your job, are you not gonna be able to feed your kids? Right? I understand there's lots of things going on here. And so I don't that's why I don't want to be, I don't want to give a blanket answer and say, well, if it if he if he's asking you to cut corners, quit. I I'm I'm very cautious in saying that because I don't know Juan's financial situation. Okay, and we don't know what corners is he asking him to cut, right? So for example, if he's asking you to cut corners that violate code, uh violate code or safety. Code is safety, by the way. I draw a hard line right there, hard line. Dude, that is against code. I'm not gonna do that. See, now that is worth me losing my job if they want me to make a code violation in order to them to meet their bid, to get the project in under budget. I will draw the line of code. Standards, I'm still gonna lean towards not doing it, but remember, standards are voluntary, so technically you don't have to follow the standards. But again, this is a small industry. You will you will find as as you go through your career in the low voltage industry, you will find that there's people who know you because of your great quality or your poor quality. And trust me, you don't want to be known as the technician who does poor quality. So you do have to draw a line, but sometimes that line is is painful. It's painful. You know, dad always used to say, Yeah, you can make your own choices, but you can't choose the consequences of your choices, right? Um, so let's just assume it is something that's critical, something that the customer's gonna really have heartburn over, or it's a code violation. Don't just blake, don't just blindly do it. Put some thought into it. Maybe try to think up of an alternate way to do it that's gonna save time and material and show and that'll still meet the warranty for the for the cable plant. Right? Try to propose an alternative because the the the project manager or the estimator or the owner of the company may not have thought about that. May not have thought about that. I am not gonna get through all 15 questions tonight. I could tell you that right now. I can tell you that right now, right? Well, at least I have questions for next week. Right. Um, also, if the company still pushes back, and again, if it's unsafe, you need to refuse and protect yourself. You just do. You just do. Question number four. This comes from Priya. I you know, I have a lot more people follow me now from Saudi Arabia and and and all those, all those all over the world. I am not just people in the United States, I am all over the globe. All over the globe. So Priya wants to know how do I estimate labor for a retrofit in an active hospital without killing the schedule? How do I estimate labor in an active hospital without killing the schedule? Okay, well, first off, what is the schedule? Right? Is it reasonable? Is it not reasonable? How much labor are we talking about? Are you gonna have to be doing abatement procedures? Are you gonna have to do to work second shift, third shift because it's an operating hospital? Man, there's lots of things, lots of things. So retrofits are always fun in hospitals because you know, especially, you know, I've done I've done cabling in emergency rooms, not while they were in there operating, obviously, but I've done cabling in emergency rooms. And you want to talk about a place that a hospital really doesn't want you making a mess, it's going to be the emergency room, right? It's gonna be the emergency room. So the best way to do it, decimate the labor for this is you know, there's an old saying, how do you eat an elephant? You break it up into small chunks. So do the same thing with this job. Try to break it up into small chunks. Maybe do bitted per floor or per or if there's an e if the floor's, you know, you got an elevator shaft in the middle and you got an east wing and a west wing, maybe give them a price to the price to do the east wing and then the west wing. So break it up into small little projects. It makes it easier to estimate because when it gets the larger it is, the harder it is the same to try to put a value to it. I was I was having a conversation with somebody last night. We were talking about estimating. He was asking me some questions about a job that he was estimating, and I don't want to say who it was or or what they were estimating, but but it's the same thing. Break it up into smaller things, right? Because you might you might again, if you're working second shift, if you're working third shift, remember there's gonna be there's gonna be added to that. You have to add in overtime, maybe. You might if it's a if it's a hospital, you might actually even have to do uh Dave and Bait David Bait David's bacon rates because of that. So lots of things you need to consider. The key is to break it into smaller things, document, make sure you fully understand the scope of work, right? And make sure that and this is critical. This is critical. Anytime you do bid work for a hospital, make sure you put in a communications plan. Make sure you put in a communications plan in the bid, right? And put under the under the assumptions or the terms and conditions. By the way, I just did a show on terms and conditions, um, and there's a free terms and conditions sheet that you can download. Anyways, um, make sure you put in the terms and conditions that the customer will meet with you once a week to discuss progress, discuss hurdles, potential change orders, work stoppages. Because they tend to forget that. They tend to forget that. Question number five. Question number five. This uh question comes from Tyler, not Tyler on here, is it Tyler Nugin from Tyler Techs? He says, Is PoE worth running four pairs for higher power? Or should I just stick with the standards? Stick with the standards. Always pull a four-pair cable, always pull a four-pair cable, always terminate all four-pair on one jack. That way that cable will work with every phone system, every computer system out there, whether it's whether it's you know, you know, a 15-watt system or a 90-watt system. Yes, the 90-watt system does need more pairs, right? That's why the standard says a minimum of two four-pair cables should be pulled to every work area outlet. If you're pulling a four-pair cable to the wireless access point, that means you have the ability to go up to the 90 watts and still do data. Well, technically, I think in the best practice manuals, I'll have to go back and double check this. I'm pretty sure in the best practice manuals, it says we have to run two cables to wireless access points for bandwidth applications. I thought I'll have to double check that, but I'm pretty sure it says that, right? Um, so the key thing here is one thing I will tell you, here's a pro tip when you're doing power over Ethernet, and I'm not gonna get into that whole conversation about mod and connectors, which is better, pass-through or traditional. I'm not gonna get in that conversation. But I will tell you this make sure your tools, make sure your crimper is adjusted, make sure the blades are good, make sure you're using the connector that matches with the crimper. Make sure you follow the instructions, make sure you use the right connector, cat 5e, cat 6, cat 6a, mod and connector for that cable. If you do that, you will avoid all those pictures that we see on the internet of people who say they hate pass-through connectors because somebody crimped them wrong, right? Somebody crimped them wrong. Right? Most hospitals are Davis Begin. Yes, it is. Thank you, Gavin. Hey Gavin, good to see you again, my friend. It seems like it's been like uh, I don't know, 25 minutes since I've talked to you. Talk to you, right? Alrighty, let's move on to question number six. This question is what's the best, what is the single best QA step to stop rework? QA quality insurance. So this might this comes from Rosa Bennett. Rosa must be a uh some kind of a quality inspector. Let me ask you this. Put the answer in a put the answer in a chat box. Does your company have a QA program? Is there a QA inspector at your company? Tell me yes or no in the chat box. I'm kind of curious um if your company has one of those or not. Because, you know, there there are there are okay companies, there are good companies, and there are great companies. Great companies always have some type of a QA program. A QA program is more than just a QA inspector. It's more, it's it's a process. It talks about what they're gonna look at, what happens if they find defects. It's gonna talk about how to review those things, how to address things. You should have a good QA program. I should do a show. I should do a show on how to create a QA program for your company. I should. So tell me, chat box. Do you have one? Do your does your company have a QA program? Now, here's what I used to do. Here's what I used to do. I used to do, I used to do what's called 10%. 10%. I get this from my old boss. Uh he has since retired, and I understand he lives in uh Key West, Florida now. Good for him. So let's say that you have a project and you and you it's it's 5,000 cables. 5,000 cables. And every day your crew is pulling 200 cables. Okay, every day your crew is pulling 200 cables. That means as a QA inspector, and even as a project foreman, even as a project foreman, right? You should be going out and looking at 20 jacks, 20 cable runs. If you find a defect, go look at another 10%. And you keep doing that till you don't find any more mistakes. Okay. 10%. Daryl says that they have their own QA program, a third-party QA, and the customer have a QA team. Very cool. I expect that from where you work, Daryl. I truly do. Truly do. So yeah, verify that 10%. Another thing, here's another pro tip for you for QA programs. Take pictures. Take pictures. Have a standardized form, a standardized inspection form. So that way you look at the exact same things no matter who's doing the project. That way you rule out favoritism. You rule out favoritism. Cole's in the house. Cole's in the house. Hey, Cole. Hey Chuck got hired as a low voltage division leader with a high voltage company that wants to start a low voltage. Oh man. Why don't you and I talk offline? Because I got lots, lots of tips. So send me a DM. You and I will schedule a call, and I'll I will talk you through that process. Lots of tips that I can give you there. I got I got 15 questions for tonight, and I'm only on question number six. Six. And I got two minutes left. So I'm running a tad bit behind, Cole. Yeah, so QA program, make sure that you have one. Make sure that you're doing that 10%. And then when you're doing those inspections, um when you're doing those inspections, you got to know who's doing the work in what area. So if I had a larger project, what I would do is I'd say, okay, and let's say I had multiple crews on a job site, I would tell, okay, your crew one, your crew two, your crew three, your crew four. Crew one, you do this area, and I would, I would highlight it on the print. You're responsible terminating all the jacks in that area. Crew two, you're responsible for terminating those. Crew three, crew four. That way, if I had an issue, I knew which crew did it. Another method you can use is to have the technicians put their initials on the back side of the faceplate. So that way, if you pull the faceplate off and you see C B, oh, we need to go talk to Chuck because Chuck did something wrong. And the reason you want to do that is it's not so you can beat that technician over the head. It's not. Not the reason. The reason for that is if Chuck starts making the same mistake over and over and over again, that might be a training issue. That might be a training issue. Right? So, and then uh, and here's another pro tip. You know, when you're doing any kind of QA inspection, make sure that you meet with the uh the project foreman or the pro or the lead tech on the job and make sure you go over the tech with the things that they need to do to fix. Is this something that we got changed on all future work, or do we have to go back and redo that stuff? If you have to go back and do it, come up with a plan. Okay, you need to have this done by Monday, the 15th at 5 p.m. But if you do that, if you do that, you better go back and make sure you inspect it. Because if you if you give those dates and you never go back and inspect it, must be 6 30, my watch is going off. If you make that date and you don't go back and inspect it, you're like a dog who barks but never bites. Let that sink in for a minute. You're a dog who barks but never bites. If you give them a date to have it fixed by, go back and fix it. I I mentioned before on the podcast that I used to do QA pro QA inspections for a company that I work for. I love doing QA inspections, love doing QA, love doing training. And I did a QA inspection for a project in Orlando, and the technician screwed the later rack brackets, the triangle brackets, to the wall with drywall anchors, not lag bolts, not toggle bolts, drywall anchors. So I told them, look, I'm gonna come back out here in two weeks. Make sure you have all those changed out. And when we got went back out there two weeks, the very first thing I checked those drywall screws. Okay? Those drywall screws. Right? Absolutely. And then make sure you have some kind of a sign-off. You know, make sure the foreman signs off on it. Review it with the customer. Make sure the customer signs off on it too. That just gets buy-in. It gets buy-in. Daryl saying postmortem meetings are the most underutilized tool by most contractors. Amen, Daryl. Amen, Daryl. And the reason for that is because a lot of contr a lot of a lot of people in the low voltage industry, they don't like doing postmortems because they feel like they're getting beat up. That's not what a postmortem is about. A postmortem, for those who don't know what that means, is a meeting done after the work after the project's done, after the books are closed, after the crew's off the site, the customer owns everything now. And and you can choose when to do it. You can do it every project, or you can do do it quarterly or yearly, whatever. The more the better. And you're going to sit down and you're going to say, okay, post mortem, here's the things that we did great. Here's the things that we exceeded on the bit. Here's the things we did bad. Here's how we fixed it. And you have you don't, and yes, it's kind of hard for a project manager to say, my project went south because you know we did this, this, and this wrong. But the reason it went south is because the painters, the electricians, the customer, blah, blah, blah, compressed schedule, couldn't get access, whatever the case may be. So now all the other project managers hear the problem that you went through, how you fix it. So now if they come across that same situation, they're already one step ahead because they've listened to how you fixed it. Now they may not fix it the same way you did yours, but they've already thought about postmortems are the best thing. You want to learn anything from tonight's show? If do postmortems. Do project postmortems, do them at least quarterly, at least quarterly. And as a project manager, you should write a project postmortem report on every project. Daryl, tell me if I'm right or wrong. You should be doing a postmortem project on every project that you do. Because if you don't learn from your mistakes, you're gonna repeat your mistakes. You're gonna repeat your mistakes. Ma'am, there you go.

unknown: 32:20

Let's get it.