Recent ruomors floating around

**TheCableVine** · April 9th, 2009, 09:13 PM

The local ELM office, I hear, has instituted a new rule about late tickets.

If you are late on a ticket you will lose some money out of your paycheck. From what I understand this was handed down to the office so it is not the decision of the local management.

Has anyone had this imposed on them and has it stuck?

Sometimes you just can't get a 2 mile long ticket done in the 2 days allowed. Especially when they call it in just after 8:00 a.m. and you don't get it til the next morning.

**yahoo** · April 9th, 2009, 09:18 PM

do you think that is legal to take money out of a check for that reason????? that's crazy and has lawsuit written all over it

**AULupstate** · April 10th, 2009, 06:54 AM

Yeah, I don't see that rule being around very long (of course it's in 'rumor' phase)

It will be interesting to see if it has any validity.

I often wonder if these companies actually run these ideas that border illegal activity by their lawyers or just impliment these policies because they feel like it?

**Mke** · April 10th, 2009, 10:27 AM

I never quite understood why the One-call centers didn't take into account that the locators leave the office at 7:30. So all the tickets sent after that time we wouldn't get till the next day, so... we actually had only 24hrs on a typical ticket.

However, washington state does it pretty good. for example:
http://www.managetickets.com/searchs...ayHeaders=True

I know its a long tag, but if you look at the dig time.. It was called in at 9am on the 6th and it aint do till midnight on the 9th.

I know the Rumor is about ELM, but i don't think it will take off here. When I was doing public one-call for the contract locating company here, they specifically stated that they expected almost 3 tickets an hour (no matter the size) and no one works over time till the supervisor says so. In lameman's terms.... No overtime during the week. The Supervisor stated that "Late tickets are going to happen, just make your calls to the contractor and let them know what is going on."

Last summer I talked to a worker from that company and he had 30 late tickets on his board, and with some counting of toes we figured at about 5 min per call it was going to take 2.5 hrs our of his day. So, you add in a 30min lunch and boom!.... you have a 5 hr work day... nice.

mke

**MOJO** · April 10th, 2009, 11:07 AM

Far too often, these "policies" are implemented without having gone through a formal cost benefit analysis. In most cases, they are the result of a mid-level manager receiving harsh critizism from a client regarding past due tickets. That same manager, whom probably knew there was an issue, pleaded ignorant in the face of the client. And then, after the phone call or meeting was over, contacted the local manager and passed down a snap decision to enforce more productivity. Instead of handling the problem at it's root, they chose a more reactive approach. It won't last and is not enforcable! If you don't have it in writing, your wages cannot be garnished for this reason. Just ride it out and do your best. Good Luck!

**GWJ_CAS** · April 10th, 2009, 12:49 PM

Rumor has it that this rule stems from an issue here in Florida. They are locating for a company on the west coast and had more than 600 late tickets in one month. The company they locate for does not pay if the ticket is late AND they back charge for the resent ticket from one call, kinda of like adding insult to injury. One call charges $0.80 per ticket sent, so 600 late tickets is $480 in backcharges plus not getting paid for those 600 locates (@ $10 each = $6000) in that month, that has to have gotten someone's attention.

**headcipher** · April 10th, 2009, 03:36 PM

This sounds crazy, I'm glad I work in Colorado.

Our dig laws state that we have 24 hrs to respond, not complete a ticket, not including the call date.

The law also states that any locate longer than 600 ft or requiring more than an hour to locate will be classified an extended job allowing us to spend 1 hour a day or 600 ft a day (whichever comes first) to complete it.

This also allows us to eliminate some wasted time locating.

By telling a contractor that his request will take weeks to mark by the law or he can narrow it down and get it done immediately has saved me more time than I can imagine.

Our Sup's totally back us up on this, after all it is the law.

So we may have a bunch of "extended jobs" but we haven't had a real "late ticket" in years.

If the companies don't like the way things are, have them change the one-call laws. Worked for us.

**AULupstate** · April 10th, 2009, 03:38 PM

Ok then let's look at the Florida dynamic.

1. How many times have contracts been given to company A, work load amasses and company A drops the ball. The Contract is recinded and given to company B who in turn has the same problems. Then company C takes over and NO MATTER what the left over work from A and B is still there and now it's C's problem to deal with.
2. Or the contract just bounces back and forth from A and B, nothing gets done and the work load still piles up while the jerk fest between the utility and the companies bidding on said utilities work.
3. Locate companies outsource (sub-contactor outfits), all the late tickets go to the subs with an unrealistic time frame for completion and 2 months into a 6 month contract the Locate Company tells the subs to go home (for whatever reason) and what's still late is still late.

Any of these sound familiar to anyone?

**GWJ_CAS** · April 10th, 2009, 06:06 PM

The worst part is if one of the late tickets results in a major hit...no way to skirt around the damage costs. Here in Florida, the One Call law not only requires the responsible party to bear the cost of repair, but it provides an avenue for the damaged party to recoup up to $500k in ancillary damages for down time, lost production, extended personnel and equipment costs.

So, if you had a scenario where a ticket was late that covered a major back haul fiber route and the contractor hit it because it was not marked in time to avoid the hit...not only do you eat the repair cost, not get paid for the locate, get backcharged for the resent ticket, but you also get the pleasure of paying the contractor that hit the thing for all his down time that resulted from the hit...

556.106 Liability of the member operator, excavator, and system.
(3) If, after receiving proper notice, a member operator fails to discharge a duty imposed by the provisions of this act and an underground facility of such member operator is damaged by an excavator who has complied with the provisions of this act, as a proximate result of the member operator's failure to discharge such duty, such excavator shall not be liable for such damage and the member operator, if found liable, shall be liable to such person for the total cost of any loss or injury to any person or damage to equipment resulting from the member operator's failure to comply with this act. Any damage for loss of revenue and loss of use shall not exceed $500,000 per affected underground facility, except that revenues lost by a governmental member operator, which revenues are used to support payments on principal and interest on bonds, shall not be limited. The liability of governmental member operators shall be subject to limitations provided in chapter 768.

**TheCableVine** · April 10th, 2009, 09:00 PM

I got a little bit more info on this. Apparently this is true but it is only for the locator who has blatantly ignored a ticket. If the ticket is dealt with and is being worked on, then it is not considered late. But, if the locator has just ignored the rules and lets the ticket go past due without contacting anyone on it, then you have a late ticket situation that will result in the disciplinary action.