We needed to upgrade our service from DSL broadband during the shelter-in-place now that we are all trying to work and learn from home using online media. We were grateful to have an appointment scheduled relatively quickly, and have been looking forward to the upgrade. I was, however, concerned about having a technician enter our home given the current recommendations surrounding the Coronavirus. During three, separate conversations with Sonic, I inquired what measures were being taken to protect both the workers performing the installations and the families into whose homes they were entering. I was assured all three times that they would be wearing masks, gloves, washing hands, using disinfectants, checking that no one in the home is ill and that they are not ill themselves, and generally adhering to the current disease-control guidelines.
The AT&T technician who arrived to do our install is a lovely person, who has been nothing but courteous and thorough with respect to the technical job he is here to perform. I have not one negative thing to say about him. When I asked if he will be putting a mask on to enter the house, I said that he was not provided with any masks and can't get them from his employer. He was wearing gloves, but they were on before he and I first spoke, and are only as clean as whatever he touches with them on. I ended up providing him with some masks we had in the house, but he had already entered inside before I found them and then put them on while wearing the same gloves that he continues to use. As we headed back outside, I stated that I would get the door for him, but I don't think he heard me, so he ended up touching the doorknobs to our front door and screen with the same hands he touched his face with when applying the mask. He did have boot covers, but no hand sanitizer or anything else -- not even a piece of fabric he could place over his mouth. He also was clearly not aware of the recommendation to maintain at least 6 feet distance. Again, I am not criticizing him at all. His employers should be ensuring that he is trained in measures that will protect him in the workplace during this pandemic.
It is clear that several issues are occurring:
1) Clearly, AT&T is not providing their workers with adequate training regarding the public health recommendations for slowing the spread of COVID-19.
2) More alarmingly, they are not providing their workers with adequate supplies to protect their employees, the families they go home to, and the customers whose homes they enter, which is unconscionable to me.
3) Sonic is offering assurances of practices that are not being upheld by their partner company, which left me scrambling and unprepared to take the measures that would best protect my family.
I am so pissed on multiple levels -- that AT&T is failing to protect their employees as they enter multiple homes over the course of the day, with no idea of whether there is active or asymptomatic infection in the house. That it's too late now to undo the possibility that my family may have just been exposed to the virus. My spouse is asthmatic and we have a child in the home. We are in one of the counties that first instituted shelter-in-place, so our lives have been on total hold for almost a month now, and it's possible that, despite all our precautions and adherence to restrictions, the virus could have walked right into our home as a result of AT&T, and by extension, Sonic's careless disregard for the safety of their workers and customers. Even if they are really sorry and change it going forward, if this particular technician was asked to go into a home with active infection, and may or may not even know that he was exposed, he could be asymptomatic and shedding the virus to others. I doubt that AT&T has any procedures for notifying customers if one of their techs does, unfortunately, fall ill, so I'm not even sure we would know until one of us falls ill, ourselves.
I don't usually post in forums. I'm only doing this at the request of the Sonic representative with whom I spoke, for the sole reason of bringing this to the attention of the CEO. The representative from Sonic was clearly concerned and said this is the first she has heard that AT&T was not following the protocols that Sonic assured me they were. If you have had a similar experience to ours, please let Sonic know right away -- it defeats the whole purpose of even doing a shelter-in-place if their technicians are unwittingly becoming vectors for virus transmission between homes.
The AT&T technician who arrived to do our install is a lovely person, who has been nothing but courteous and thorough with respect to the technical job he is here to perform. I have not one negative thing to say about him. When I asked if he will be putting a mask on to enter the house, I said that he was not provided with any masks and can't get them from his employer. He was wearing gloves, but they were on before he and I first spoke, and are only as clean as whatever he touches with them on. I ended up providing him with some masks we had in the house, but he had already entered inside before I found them and then put them on while wearing the same gloves that he continues to use. As we headed back outside, I stated that I would get the door for him, but I don't think he heard me, so he ended up touching the doorknobs to our front door and screen with the same hands he touched his face with when applying the mask. He did have boot covers, but no hand sanitizer or anything else -- not even a piece of fabric he could place over his mouth. He also was clearly not aware of the recommendation to maintain at least 6 feet distance. Again, I am not criticizing him at all. His employers should be ensuring that he is trained in measures that will protect him in the workplace during this pandemic.
It is clear that several issues are occurring:
1) Clearly, AT&T is not providing their workers with adequate training regarding the public health recommendations for slowing the spread of COVID-19.
2) More alarmingly, they are not providing their workers with adequate supplies to protect their employees, the families they go home to, and the customers whose homes they enter, which is unconscionable to me.
3) Sonic is offering assurances of practices that are not being upheld by their partner company, which left me scrambling and unprepared to take the measures that would best protect my family.
I am so pissed on multiple levels -- that AT&T is failing to protect their employees as they enter multiple homes over the course of the day, with no idea of whether there is active or asymptomatic infection in the house. That it's too late now to undo the possibility that my family may have just been exposed to the virus. My spouse is asthmatic and we have a child in the home. We are in one of the counties that first instituted shelter-in-place, so our lives have been on total hold for almost a month now, and it's possible that, despite all our precautions and adherence to restrictions, the virus could have walked right into our home as a result of AT&T, and by extension, Sonic's careless disregard for the safety of their workers and customers. Even if they are really sorry and change it going forward, if this particular technician was asked to go into a home with active infection, and may or may not even know that he was exposed, he could be asymptomatic and shedding the virus to others. I doubt that AT&T has any procedures for notifying customers if one of their techs does, unfortunately, fall ill, so I'm not even sure we would know until one of us falls ill, ourselves.
I don't usually post in forums. I'm only doing this at the request of the Sonic representative with whom I spoke, for the sole reason of bringing this to the attention of the CEO. The representative from Sonic was clearly concerned and said this is the first she has heard that AT&T was not following the protocols that Sonic assured me they were. If you have had a similar experience to ours, please let Sonic know right away -- it defeats the whole purpose of even doing a shelter-in-place if their technicians are unwittingly becoming vectors for virus transmission between homes.
