You know traffic lights are controlled over analogue private circuits, don't you Terry?

So Terry is doing some work in an exchange.

He's trying to locate a pair he needs to connect a customer.

He shorts out one of the pairs with his pliers, and hears a screeching sound
outside.

"That's weird" he thinks. "Wonder what it was". He thinks some more.
"maybe if I try it again the same thing will happen".

He shorts out the pair.

Sure enough. "SCREECH!!!"

"Wow!", says Terry to himself. "what's this????"

Terry knows his mate Fred is in the exchange, and is an old hand at this
sort of thing.

So Terry goes to get Fred.

"Fred, take a look at this". If I short out this pair here there's a weird
screeching noise comes from outside the exchange!"

"What", says Fred. "Show me".

"Sure", says Terry and shorts the pair out.

"SCREEEEECH! CRUNCH!!!!!!"

"Blimey", says Fred. That's sounded like it came from just outside. Let's
take a look."

Fred and Terry swipe themselves out of the building (separately of course -
otherwise they'd never get back in).

The sight that meets their eyes is one of disaster. Two cars have collided
at the crossroads outside the exchange.

"Oops!", says Fred. "You know traffic lights are controlled over analogue
private circuits, don't you Terry?"

In a world that doesn't

Droid: "in a world that doesn't, Droid does."

Where as "Terry Telco: doesn't, in a world that does."

Keeping customers according to Terry

I saw a sign hanging from the ceiling of a work area the other day that read "Keep your customers...Think 2 year PSTN"

[Photo withheld to protect the guilty].

Laws of Terry

#12: The most non-obvious, completely ass-backwards, most expensive, most complicated approach will always be taken.

#13: Any perceived progress or actual things happening at a Telco happen randomly/by chance.

#14: IP (v4 or v6) is not the way forward. Just because everyone is using it just means its worth funding a study to investigate it further.

#15: Any meeting is worth having again. Any great meeting is worth a recurring Outlook invite.

The Hierarchy of Things

In Terry's world, there is a rigid hierarchy that must be observed. A chain of command if you will. Take any short-cuts through the chain and the links you have hopped over will become agitated and may retaliate in interesting ways.

If you have an issue, it must first be discussed with your manager. Preferably in an official fashion via email, or with meeting minutes. If it is determined that you must get an answer from someone above this person, the whole discussion must first be rehearsed and "sanitized" or "filtered" prior to going out. This usually comes in the form of an email message being previewed prior to being sent up the chain. If messages are to be sent to senior management then messages must be doubly-checked and filtered so as to not "offend the sensibilities" of the seniors. After all, these guys generally have the attention span of a 4 year-old with severe ADD, and so catching their attention for more than 20 seconds is a challenge in itself, but getting an actual reply that is meaningful and that can be acted upon -- that is indeed the trick.

The Irony of Meetings

The irony of meetings with Terry is that "meeting actions" are always to take further non-action.