Reply to post: Held to a higher standard?

Held to a higher standard?

Back in the early 90s I was a teenage PABX installer, travelling all over the country

I was assigned an important job - cabling up the new offices of the company which sold the systems and provided all our work. At the time BT would inspect your installation* and if it didn't meet their standards, refuse to connect the external lines. One key regulation was keeping telephone cables at least 50mm from electrical ones and up and off false ceilings.

Off I went to the job, fairly easy as it was a modern office with false ceilings. Careful, neat runs of telephone cables in said ceiling. Ran out of day and didn't have time to strap them up off the ceiling, No problem, I was to return in a few days and could finish.

Oh the naivety of youth! Upon return I opened the ceilings to find the unholiest rat's nest of electrical cables known to mankind. Literally every tile had a mass of crossing and twisted cables heaped upon it. And of course, all on top of my lovely cables. I was sure disaster would strike and we'd fail the inspection.

Shouldn't have wasted an ounce of nervous energy - this was BT in the 90s. The nice BT man came along, glanced at the PABX fixed to the wall and signed it off. Inspect the cabling properly? Open a ceiling tile for a cursory glance? No way - he was off down the cafe.

Not long after, BT inspections were ended and a BSI standards self sign-off was introduced, but of course I kept to my high installation standards*

* for ancient historians, known as a "PCI" (pre-connection inspection)

**Of course I didn't