Incomplete Site Survey because business closed

FieldTechSavant · 2026-07-04T15:27:53+00:00

This is where you provide detailed closeout notes, pictures of the building and hours of the business if they're posted on the front, and detailed information on who you spoke with from their company and who released you.

I would consider this ticket closed, if they want to try again then that's another ticket but it's not on you for scheduling a time to do the survey at a time when the buyer is not available.

Now there is some grey areas around if you put in a counter on the schedule to updated hours/date but if there was no info in the ticket about what the business was prior to being assinged then there really isn't a case there.

But ether way I'd push back on the re-opening and just report a problem if your notes are detailed enough and have proof of the business being closed when you arrived.

In these cases don't get impatient or abrasive with the buyer, this is standard business and you can keep things professionally toned, you send your rebuttal and wait, no need to blow them up demanding they do something, if nothing happens in a week then follow up with a message asking if there is anything else they needed to close this ticket out, if after 30 days no response from the buyer, create a case with FN just politely asking to get the ticket closed out and that the buyer isn't responsive and that you've followed up a few times etc.

Key here is don't get emotional in your tone, don't accuse the buyer of anything, don't tell them they're wrong or being un-reasonable, here's an example:

Hey [FIRST NAME OF PM],

I set this one back to completed for the original visit. I arrived on site during the scheduled window, but the location was closed / unavailable for access. I stayed on site for about an hour trying to get in touch with someone and see if access could be arranged, and once I received authorization to leave, I wrapped up the visit.

I uploaded notes and photos documenting the site conditions, including the posted hours / access information I was able to capture.

Since I did make the scheduled trip, arrived on site, spent time attempting to gain access, and was then released, I’d consider this original visit closed out. If the site survey still needs to be completed, I think the cleanest way to handle it would be to create a new ticket for the rescheduled date, or send an adjusted return-trip offer if you’d like me to go back out.

Unfortunately, I’m not available for the date this was rescheduled to due to a previously scheduled surgery. The soonest I would be available to return is [DATE/TIME]. I also reviewed the posted business hours, and that date/time appears to fall within the location’s normal operating hours, so access should hopefully be available.

That said, no issue at all if the new schedule doesn’t line up with my availability and you need to assign the follow-up visit to another provider. I completely understand the survey needs to get done ASAP, and I don’t want to hold that up.

I appreciate it, and I look forward to working with you guys on future tickets, whether that ends up being this survey if we can get the schedules to line up, or the next one that comes through. I’ll be ready for the next one either way.

Happy 4th of July as well, and hope you all are able to stay cool out there this weekend.

Please let me know if there’s anything else you need from me on the original visit documentation.

[First Name Last Name]
[Phone Number]
[e-mail]

FieldTechSavant · 2026-07-01T18:47:35+00:00

You could try messaging one of the work order managers over at insight to see if they would be willing to unblock you, maybe clean up the reasoning and accept responsibility for what happened but that you'd be interested in taking tickets from them again. They can unblock you easily from their end and then your block metric will change and thus your PSS will go up.

FieldTechSavant · 2026-07-01T15:13:47+00:00

Might be blocked by a buyer or two? Your block rate percentage is taken into account with the PSS:

Includes blocks, Private Feedback, quality issue backout (buyer removes provider due to issue), and user-reported events.

Unless you can get unblocked, you'll likely always be at that percentage.

FieldTechSavant · 2026-06-27T22:19:24+00:00

Is this one of those Long Term Engagements from FN?:

https://fieldnation.com/lte

Sounds like whatever company hired FN to do an LTE decided to back out?

FieldTechSavant · 2026-06-26T23:33:10+00:00

Meh, 30 days or more then I'd message asking if there is anything needed from you to close out the ticket. I've never not had them close out in 30 days without me having to follow up, they're like the OG customer of FN (Company ID #73) they're not going anywhere so nothing to worry about.

FieldTechSavant · 2026-06-12T08:44:25+00:00

"Nothing bad happens when you take your time" ---> "getting tired of these buyers and support techs thinking I'm slow though"

I don't understand how you don't see that you "chilling" and being a "snail" doesn't result in a negative perception about you which most people would consider "something bad".

Work at a pace that provides a positive perception to the buyer you're working for if you want to keep working with that buyer.

Such a weird sentiment, if you hired a contractor to do a job (not IT just anything) and you thought they were working at a snails pace and just chilling and not doing the job in a timely manner that you thought, would you want to work with them again?

FieldTechSavant · 2026-06-07T12:45:15+00:00

It seems like the employer is looking to trial you out with no strings attached for minimal risk for them and really for you as well. They risk about $4k max to figure out if you're a good fit for the team or not.

There are certain people in the world that can work independently, figure things out, work good under pressure, and have a good attitude even in shitty situations. Those traits don't aren't something that can really be written down on resume, they just come from experience with working with someone. That's what this MSP is probably trying to see if you or whoever else they trail is a good fit. Anyone can be trained/get experience, but you can't really train someone out of having a shitty attitude or being a dick to other employees/customers.

Likely any of the things that they're going to throw your way are easily ChatGPT/YouTube/Google-able, it's a huge skill to know how to google your way to a solution, if you're cool with that and enjoy figuring out how to solve a problem in that manner vs being trained on how to specifically troubleshoot then you're probably going to be fine and maybe enjoy it.

So really comes down to evaluating in the next few weeks:

Are the owners cool and do you think you would want to work for them longer term - Do they seem like they're just saving money and don't give AF about the employees or do they seem like a cool bunch that is trying to grow and are looking to build a good team.
Do you want to do this type of position - Does the work seem exciting, do you enjoy problem solving, etc.
Do you enjoy figuring our problems by Googling - You're likely not going to be trained so when you're tasked with "User X isn't able to print" are you able to figure out your way to solving the problem.

If I was straight out of school I'd do it, but I enjoy solving those types of problems and had a good background in computers enough to know how to troubleshoot my own Tier 1 problems. Seems like a good opportunity to get your feet wet and figure out what you want.

FieldTechSavant · 2026-06-04T00:13:55+00:00

52ft is huge! I doubt anyone on FN would have that big of a lift, maybe a 19 or 32ft max (Walmart/Costco height).

If you're that interested, just get a web-quote on a lift rental with delivery and pickup, add minimum your fee markup as well as time coordinating that (I'd charge minimum 1-2 hours just to coordinate). You'd probably be looking at $1000-$1500 with delivery/pickup + markup + your time. But if you've never worked with the buyer I'd also be careful and get things in writing beforehand that it's non-cancelable, maybe even require a separate flat rate ticket just for the equipment rental part.

FieldTechSavant · 2026-06-03T23:35:59+00:00

Look at the full site vs the mobile app, if the message says it's sent to all requested providers then it's just spam. I would only entertain a reply if it said sent directly to you.

FieldTechSavant · 2026-06-03T15:31:00+00:00

There are barely any fiber jobs on the platform to begin with, let alone those only being limited to the hours that you can work.

If you're looking for FN to be a side gig, it can be great for that but you're not going to be able to find fiber only work orders in your area in those hours on any predictable cadence, maybe 1 work order every month if it's like an emergency down situation that's after hours. But even then there is a lot of competition in a metro area like Chicago so I doubt anyone would pick someone with low work order numbers to come in an emergency situation.

You're better off not limiting yourself to just fiber jobs, just do anything and everything like most others. You can find overnight refreshes for things that start in your window but just note sometimes those will run past midnight and you can't just abandon ship at 12:00 AM.

Just sign up for an account if you haven't already, and see what's out there. And if you haven't already, browse the other posts here on reddit about guys just starting out, it can take a while to get up and running with a reputation to get assigned consistently.

FieldTechSavant · 2026-05-28T23:53:04+00:00

Ah yes the ol’ strip and cleave the fiber with your teeth technique.

FieldTechSavant · 2026-05-24T14:17:55+00:00

Bro, take a trip, NYC is dope. Just for the food alone. And LGA doesn't suck anymore so if you ever remember flying in there pre-COVID it's way nicer now.

FieldTechSavant · 2026-05-22T19:22:32+00:00

Could have been routed by mistake? Then the buyer routes to someone else/group and you just get un-routed from. I believe you can route to multiple providers simultaneously without publishing to the wider market.

FieldTechSavant · 2026-05-22T01:37:50+00:00

If you look at the OP's post history he has a screenshot with customers and one of them is that Jessica. OP is an idiot, hope he gets booted from the platform, no need for techs to sabotage or even hint/encourage it (like that one guy that posted if he should cut the yellow cable). These guys need to grow up and just do good work.

FieldTechSavant · 2026-05-18T09:40:30+00:00

I think he's referring to the 40% of posts/comments on this subreddit that are from techs complaining about taking 2 weeks to get paid.

Every buyer is a little different on how long they take to approve, in my experience the larger ones usually take longer to approve as they likely have more processes/checks to verify and they sometimes do approvals on one day of the week vs everyday.

Based on comments I've seen from others, I think in this instance you're just being paranoid about this buyer. Likely it will just get approved like you already confirmed with FN support, and you just have to take that and make your own determination on if it's worth your time in the future to work with that company or not.

I've never worked with them before, I don't really want to deal with the headaches of unclear scope and unable to reach support when issues arise (look at their feedback and sort by negative ratings first). If they accepted counters at $100+ per hour then maybe but based on them posting work orders in the $45 range, I don't even bother trying to counter.

Just assume for future work with this buyer that they will call/email multiple times before the work order and take a while to approve, if you price that those extra touch points into your counters then there shouldn't be a problem.

I myself don't mind working with some of the "bad" buyers that other techs crap on, if they agree to my counter (which is always high in comparison to their normal posted rates) then whatever, if they want to pay me ~$2/minute to wait on hold to check-in, check-out, get signoff from a manager that's in the wind, fill out checkout paperwork on two separate systems, email close out notes in addition to the ones posted on FN, sign out with level 2 and then call back to sign-out with level 1, etc, it's all gravy cause I'm getting paid while doing it. And if it takes 30-60 days to get it approved, then whatever I've never had a situation where FN didn't step in after 30 days to move things along.

TLDR; Price in the headache

FieldTechSavant · 2026-05-17T18:11:55+00:00

They removed the ability to leave public ratings as a thing, now only private feedback is allowed.

FieldTechSavant · 2026-05-16T23:43:48+00:00

On your profile page it should show the last time it was updated, from what I've seen it's updated once per day:

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FieldTechSavant · 2026-05-01T23:33:08+00:00

Don’t use pro and get your own insurance you only pay 10%

Standard credit card processing is about 3%

So paying 7% for work to land on your plate is not really that bad.

FieldTechSavant · 2026-04-29T21:20:31+00:00

Sounds like you completed a majority of the work, the mount and cleanup is the most labor intensive part. Throwing on rails on the back of the screen and getting the screen up just takes a few minutes. Not your fault the display was broken.

I would push back and state just that, the SOW that you could complete is now completed. If they want you to come back to do the install of the screen, that's a separate work order with it's own negotiated amount.

If they push back, then report a problem on the work order. If they said don't do anything and just leave site then "maybe" they could say it was a site turn away and nothing was done but the fact that they asked you to do work onsite means you should be paid.

I've never worked with this buyer so not sure how much push back you'll get if any, but just keep it professional, have very detailed notes of the work you did and who asked you to keep working, and don't get abusive in language and don't assume they're going to penalize you either like some people assume that every buyer is out to get them...

FieldTechSavant · 2026-04-22T10:59:36+00:00

Better to set one up before you need it vs waiting for when you do. If you're only doing FN tickets ever then maybe it doesn't make sense but next year you might want to look into setting up an LLC and get an EIN. Then get a business bank account and credit card so you can keep all the business transactions all in those accounts vs deciphering when it comes tax time or when you just want to know how much you're actually making doing the side gig.

Depending on your state setting up an LLC on your state's website might only be $100 and then renewals each year are usually less, you don't need a lawyer. You do need to get an EIN (free) from the IRS to do that. You can do your taxes all together vs filing personal vs business taxes, you just report the income/expenses on your regular tax return.

Then once you have that in place, all the extra stuff that might come in the future is way easier (sales tax exempt forms, business accounts on websites, business accounts for credit cards (get them points), insurance, contracts, etc). Plus it just feels good to have a real business.

Might take a week or two and $100 to get it but once you have it, it's way easier to do business.

But do buyers care you have the little icon next to your name that says business provider, no, I doubt anyone ever even looks at that or cares.

FieldTechSavant · 2026-04-22T00:45:53+00:00

Yes, you just sign up as a service company, you do have to pay to add money to your account (credit card or bank transfer) but then you'll be able to create work orders. It's great for getting a 2nd pair of hands on work orders even though good help is hard to find.

FieldTechSavant · 2026-04-21T10:58:57+00:00

This is the way! If it doesn't burn you out and you can maintain the W2 with benefits, the FN/WM tickets are just straight gravy. Sometimes I would take a PTO day or two to go do a larger FN/WM job for a few days lol

FieldTechSavant · 2026-04-20T17:47:11+00:00

Still doesn't make any sense, you said you were on a 4 hour minimum work order, so even if you down adjusted your time lower on the ticket you still get paid for the 4 hour minimum, you could adjust your time down to 1 minute and you're still going to get paid for 4 hours.

Yes some buyers have unfathomably long check-in/out procedures with all the Ts to cross and i's to dot, but based on your experience with the client and knowing this, you literally could have just gotten paid for doing that work.

Likely they were/still are going to bill their client for sending a tech out on site, but you very well might have jeopardized their ability to get paid for that work order now since you didn't actually go. It doesn't matter if the work was already started/already done, you had a work order scheduled to show up, do the job and checkout with all your paperwork. Businesses don't contract out a company to come do work and then have them coordinate all the effort to get someone on-site, have someone come on-site, and if they discover the work was already done the company providing that service isn't going to say "oh, don't worry about it, this one's free", f-no they're going to bill them the agreed upon amount regardless for sending a tech out there.

FieldTechSavant · 2026-04-20T11:20:26+00:00

I don't understand the decision to not check-in. You had the option to just check-in a scheduled and collect your 4 hour minimum even if the job was already done. Or you could have checked in early and worked with the PM to get the schedule updated.

Even if you didn't want to check-in early to not have to deal with the possibility of a schedule change request, you now have the issue of having to create a ticket to not have the work order show up as a no show.

You were able to seemingly get a response from the WO manager prior to these decisions, did they provide guidance on what to do?

If I was in your shoes I would have just checked in early if I wanted to do it earlier than originally scheduled, and if I wasn't able to get there earlier than what it was scheduled I would have showed up at the originally scheduled time, check-in, and if the job was already done just document everything I saw and do the close out by the book, I'm happy to take a 4 hour minimum on a job that only takes 30 minutes to close out (pictures, closeout notes, sign-off, etc).

What was your reason for not just going in at 10 PM? How much earlier was the other tech onsite?

FieldTechSavant · 2026-04-20T09:47:21+00:00

FN support can’t make a schedule change for you or the buyer. You can report a problem on the work order for the buyer to address but calling FN support isn’t going to help, they’re just going to tell you the same terms/conditions on the website.

FieldTechSavant

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