REMEMBERING!!!!!!!!

Finley Engineering Company, Inc. This is an email I sent dated 8/8/2006. It was sent to Larry Fausett (now vice president), Ken Knuth (president), Ben Humphrey (Slayton, Mn. office), Lonnie McFadden (Lamar office mgr.), Charles Orrell (retired). The email was directed to Larry Fausett as he was head of the Tennessee Project.
Subject: Remembering!
Larry,
Good morning. If I knew your home email I would not have sent this to the office. This little map I am sending with this email is totally from memory---like a lot of things that come to me. I wonder if the reason I remember it so well is that I started a simple request with you and you managed to get me upset because you resembled an old mule in your response. I had the simple pleasure of meeting Mr. Scott and his wife. They were very nice rural folks and had spent a good portion of their lives working to build a nice place to live (and it was nice as I remember). This was early 2001 in case you forgot the time frame. I believe at Lanier Road and the highway to the west of Scott's is where we had the cabinet to serve the area placed.
Maybe that's the difference Larry, you weren't the one surveying along their road and so you never had the pleasure of making their acquaintance. Somehow though, I doubt it would have turned out different. Their existing ped was actually mounted on a pole that was an old drop pole and it was actually located up in their yard and in front of (to some extent), their dining room window where they sat daily for their meals. They were really sick of looking out to enjoy the view, only to have the view compromised by this ugly phone thing. NO BURIED SPLICES was the rule of the day---as I recall. There were just a small number of subscribers beyond their place and I think I had to place a new peice of 12 pair. I asked you, I pleaded with you, I begged you, please for these folks, can't we make an effort by asking Pete Terry or someone if they couldn't grant us permission to place a buried splice in this situation. The existing cables had plenty of buried splices. Your harsh response was "NO"----period! I really think that was where I first began looking at who you had become from that young kid in Kentucky. I envisioned you had been a country boy yourself----don't know where I got that but that's the impression I remember. I really thought you'd give it a shot for these folks and you didn't even seem to give a damn. Failure isn't when you try something and don't have success----Failure is when you don't even try at all, which you didn't. Funny how things like that stay in the back of your mind. I guess some people just didn't like the fact that I cared about my job a little more than they cared about the same job. I believe honest PR from the heart with the subscribers that support you, pay "BIG DIVIDENDS" in the end. Honest means it's real. It's done as a "common sense" deed and is a benefit to the subscriber. If it makes them smile and feel good then it's a plus. Makes you and the phone company look better, which is where you'd like to be.
I had looked over their situation and I knew I had to place a new drop to their house and I had to place a new peice of cable. I had figured out how to set one new ped and it would have been located in a place agreeable by them. I then wanted to bury the splice where the ugly phone thing was, to connect into the remaining cable to the field. That was my question. Could we please ask permission to bury this one splice in this situation. What you caused me to have to do was to place a new "ugly phone thing" in place of the old "ugly phone thing" and they had to go on being frustrated for another 20 years and disliking the phone company even more than they alaready did for doing this in the first place. I always kind of liked you, ya know. I was just sort of taken back by your coldness and not giving a damn attitude. I realize you were new to managing and maybe just felt you didn't need the added stress of a question. I don't know if I made it out to apologize to them for being unable to fulfill the view I presented to them (you see before I asked you I had the feeling of confidence that you would really do what you could to help). It seems that I did call them---I hope I did. I probably said something like, "I really hate to have to bring this news Mr. & Mrs. Scott,but what I wanted to do for you that was pleasing to you and your wife----well the people that have the say, well, they seem to have their head up their butts and can't seem to do anything except say no, and I don't agree, but that's the way it seems like it's going to be." "I do apologize."
That's where I am, that's who I am-----always on the side of the common man who pays your wages in the end.
Good day!
William Vincent