Rant: This old guy in a Denver apartment building showed me his cable box collection

I was swapping out a DVR for a new client on the 8th floor, and the neighbor, Mr. Jenkins, asked if I wanted to see something. He had like 15 old cable boxes from the 90s and 2000s lined up on a shelf, each with a little date tag. He said, 'These are all the times someone came to my home to fix a problem.' It made me realize how much of our job is about trust and showing up, not just the wire. Anyone else have a customer who kept a weird piece of install history?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_lucas1mo ago

That's a pretty solid collection. Reminds me of a lady who saved every single work order slip from twenty years of satellite service. Had them in a photo album, like little trophies. It's a strange kind of trust, letting a stranger into your home that many times. The hardware just becomes the receipt.

paul2861mo ago

Yeah, the "hardware just becomes the receipt" part really hits. We do that with so much stuff now, keeping the box or the manual long after the thing is gone. It's like the physical proof matters more than the service or the item ever did. Makes you wonder what we're all trying to hold onto.

jessica_robinson231mo ago

My grandma kept every single plastic bread bag clip, sorted by color in an old coffee tin. She said it proved she never wasted a thing. We hold onto the weirdest stuff as proof we were there, that something happened. Like my dad's jar of used spark plugs from every car he ever fixed. The object is just the bookmark for the memory.