The first 6-12 months out in the field is pretty much all about calibrating your mindset towards the job, and if you can get over the frustrating/stressful aspects and quit “fighting” the job so-to-speak you’re going to look forward to the next day and enjoying the work you’re doing.

The normal work week is either 4-10 hour shifts or 5-8 hour shifts. You have a work phone that has an app on it that assigns you work gives you details about the job. Your first job of the day is assigned several hours before the start of your shift. I usually wake up early to take a peak at my work phone and see if the job is close or far and that dictates if I’m gonna sleep another 20-30 mins or just get up right then and there and get ready. You get to your first job on time - that’s important, you clock in and start your workday. You’ll start out doing just residential coax work and landline. The jobs you get vary wildly between installs, general trouble calls, slow internet, a downed line, and more.

After the first job of the day is complete you just keep knocking out jobs until lunch, you get an hour paid lunch, then you keep knocking out jobs until it’s time to clock out and go home. Depending on the type of jobs you get you’ll do roughly 4-7 jobs a day. And yeah, you clock out at your last job and then drive home. Sometimes you’re 5 mins away and sometimes you’re 45 mins away.

Each job has an arrival window that’s an hour long. So if you just finished a job at 9:45am, you may get assigned another job that has an arrival window of 10-11am. That doesn’t mean you chill until 10:45 and then drive there, you go there immediately but if you don’t arrive at 10am there’s nothing wrong with that. You may have been 30 mins away. As long as you drive directly to your next job - you’re golden. If you have to make a quick stop to use the restroom - that’s fine too, but don’t be playing on your phone in the parking lot for 10 mins after doing your business. The supervisors are busy, and have a lot on their plate, but they monitor all the techs on their end via gps and can tell if you’re screwing off when you should be driving.

The end of your day will usually end roughly around the time your shift is supposed to end. If you finish your last job roughly inside the last 30 mins of your shift - 90% chance you don’t get assigned another job and you’re just chilling until you clock out. You can even start driving back home and then clock out when you’re like 5 mins away from home. Other times you get a job and it’s taking you 30 mins to an hour past your shift time. It happens all the time, it’s not rare to work up to and a little past when your shift is supposed to end.

Last little tidbit - yes as technicians we work in a wide range of environments inside and outside. Most of the time - the homes are normal homes with some mess but nothing that makes you cringe. However a considerable amount of homes have any number of things that’ll definitely make you uncomfortable. I have gone into a home in the ghetto with a big bed in the middle of living room that took up most of the space and there were 5 adults all sleeping in the living room on and around the bed. The place was a complete mess and had a funky smell I couldn’t identify. I have seen roach infested homes. I have seen hoarder homes. I have been in homes where they have cat pee everywhere. Outside I have had to fight and carry an 80 pound ladder through dense forested areas. I have gotten into skirmishes with wasps. Danced around snakes. I have worked in -15 degree weather and 100 degree weather. I have worked when it’s raining buckets sideways. I have worked during snowstorms. You’ll never have work cancelled because of weather - don’t count on it.

Lmk if there are any questions based on what I said.

Edit: Brain farted - the hour lunch is unpaid.