An (imagined) day in the life of an NBN installer in suburban Melbourne

Countless diligent contractors are working their hardest to connect the NBN network up across the country, but there are some rogues who give the rest a bad name. We imagine the day in the life of one such NBN installer.

DIARY OF A (FICTIONAL) NBN CONTRACTOR

9am: Wake up after sleeping through alarm. Scroll through Instagram for a bit before realising it’s now 10am. Quick shower and into the van.

10.30am: Attend first job, scheduled for 9am. Client’s in a really bad mood for some reason. Take a look at the installation job and decide I’m not qualified to do this one. Tell them they should call Telstra.

They say this is the fourth time someone’s been out to have a look and they’re sick of having no internet. I tell them Churchill managed fine without the internet! They get angrier so I leave.

Churchill was able to run a country without it. Think about that.

11.45am: Attend second job, scheduled for 9.30am. It must be Angry Wednesday or something. Nobody’s happy to see me. Hook up the cable and everything’s tickety-boo. Ungrateful clients annoyed because now the internet no longer works at all. They say it worked before but I don’t believe them. I tell them I’m just the contractor and they should call Telstra. They insist I fix it so I tell them I’m grabbing a special tool from the van but then I just leave lol.

12.50pm: Attend third job, scheduled for 10am. Note on the door says they’ve gone out. Rude! Way to muck up my day. There’s no helping some people.

12. 55pm: Sausage roll time.

1.45pm: Attend fourth job, scheduled for 10.30am. Clients ask what the difference is between NBN and 5G. I explain 5G is kind of like the NBN, only probably a bit better. They ask why they should get the NBN at all. Good question! I tell them to call Telstra, I’m just the contractor.

2.10pm: Return to van to find council officer issuing a parking ticket. Not fair, I was only halfway across the driveway. I tell him I’m only the contractor and he should call Telstra but he doesn’t listen. Why does this always happen to me?

Outrageous, there was still half a drive they could use.

2.45pm: Contact the clients scheduled around midday and tell them I’m running a bit late. They say they noticed because I didn’t show up three hours ago. They ask for a definite attendance time so they can plan the rest of their day. Call Telstra.

2.50pm: Attend fifth job, scheduled for 11am. Clients are really mad I’m late. I explain the thing with the parking ticket but they don’t sympathise and tell me to move my van out of their chairman’s parking space. Connect the cable and the internet works no problem. What a great feeling to connect the public to the nation’s most important communications infrastructure project. Client says it’s working because the old cable is still connected and when I switch it across there’s nothing. Guess they’ll have to drop Telstra a line.

I believe this is one for Telstra.

3.25pm: Drop into a local cafe and grab a muffin and coffee. Barista says EFTPOS is down because of something to do with the NBN. Has he even called Telstra? He says it’s been a nightmare from the start. When the contractor came to install the cable, he wasn’t qualified and they had to run the cable through the roof space themselves. Bad idea! I told him only the professionals should handle jobs like that. Telstra will sort him out.

3.40pm: Contact clients who are scheduled for the afternoon and tell them I’m running a bit behind and maybe they should call Telstra and make a different time. Grumpy guts all around.

This is what wall art was invented for.

READ MORE: THE REALITY SHOWS MELBOURNE DESERVES

4.25pm: Attend sixth job, scheduled for 11.30am. Discover they’ve already got the NBN connected and this is the eighth time someone’s been over unexpectedly to install it. I tell them the record shows it isn’t installed so what they have must not be NBN. They say it’s NBN because their internet is running like it’s on speed. To be safe I take it out and reinstall it. Better safe than sorry. No connection now, but flick a message to Telstra and they’ll take a look. Only a bit of damage to the wall, just hang a picture over it.

4.55pm: Bloody traffic! Call clients scheduled for midday and tell them I can’t come because of the traffic. Not my fault. Telstra.

5pm: Knock off.

Mitchell Toy is a Melbourne writer and artist.