Seek & destroy: Cabling photos

Referring to the myriad of ugly "cable fail" situations to be found, and rectified in the field, by generations of information and communication technology (ICT) technicians.
July 16, 2021
4 min read
Wikipedia / Fair use
This is the cover art for Kill 'Em All by the band/artist Metallica. The cover art copyright is believed to belong to the label, Megaforce Records / Elektra Records, or the graphic artist(s).
This is the cover art for Kill 'Em All by the band/artist Metallica. The cover art copyright is believed to belong to the label, Megaforce Records / Elektra Records, or the graphic artist(s).
We're scanning the scene in the city tonight
We're looking for you to start up a fight
There is an evil feeling in our brains
But there's nothing new, you know it drives us insane...
Searching
Seek and destroy...

-- Metallica, 'Seek & Destroy'

Was the legendary heavy metal band metaphorically referring to the myriad of ugly "cable fail" situations to be found, and rectified in the field, by forthcoming generations of information and communication technology (ICT) technicians (as regularly chronicled on social media at Reddit's photo subcommunities devoted to uncovering such indignities to the trade)?

Probably not. And yet...how many techs of a certain age have cabled to this music? How many digital foundations have been raised amid the pulse of these jackhammering guitars? Feel free to share your thoughts on the best music to cable to in the Comments section below.

Reddit/Cablegore
Seek1
"Found between underground run and grounding block on a WISP antenna." -- Reddit/Cablegore OP [orig. poster]: u/levidurham
Reddit/Cablegore
Seek2
"Can whoever's in the office first on Monday investigate why we lost internet on Saturday? This was back in 2012; my company had the second floor, and a new tenant on the ground floor was renovating before they moved in, in concert with the landlord. The prior week, we'd briefed the construction crews about how our lines were in their ceiling, and helped them mark which ones to spare. The downstairs tenant, a law firm, was having the renovation directed by the owner's wife, and she didn't want any wires of ours in their whole office, so someone working on a Saturday completely obliterated our office network in a few seconds with a sawz-all. We limped on Wifi and DSL for a few days while our people screamed at their people and the landlord and I ran cable all over our office with no mind whatsoever for hiding the cable or making it look good, not even to run it in the ceiling plenum -- as long as nobody was actually walking on it or getting clotheslined by it, it was good to go. Later we had a proper contractor come in and finish the job." -- Reddit/Cablegore OP: u/Sunfried
Reddit/Cablegore
Seek3
"Client moved into commercial space with provided network. Here’s the IT closet. No VLANs or anything to separate tenants, notice all the random switches thrown in. Also of course the Ethernet wall ports in my client’s office were not working." -- Reddit/Cablegore OP: u/youtocin
Reddit/Cablegore
Seek4
"They started good, then just gave up." -- Reddit/Cablegore OP: u/Greening101
Reddit/Cablegore
Seek5
"Can you spot the problem? I inherited this network. Discovered this in the security hut at one of our branches today. The devices at the end of these cables are fingerprint readers for access control. The media converter you see is connected to the PC port on the phone in this office. No one knows where that fibre goes. Also, ports 1-4 of the switch are connected to devices using only two cables. The security installer ran a single cable to each location and ran two devices off it. Also, ports 1-4 have only two standard cat5e cables between them. The installer took two pairs from each cable and wired it to each port. It will probably work, but is sus af…at the same site I found a printer connected to the PC port of a phone. Told the on-site guy to get it fixed - I don’t care if he has to get a contractor in to pull more cables, but this is a big violation of our network and VLAN standards. I’ve started the process of pulling apart our existing network and pulling in fresh cat6a and os2 cabling throughout." -- Reddit/Cablegore OP: u/jacod1982

Send your must-see cabling photos to [email protected].

About the Author

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Matt Vincent

Senior Editor

Matt Vincent is a B2B technology journalist, editor and content producer with over 15 years of experience, specializing in the full range of media content production and management, as well as SEO and social media engagement best practices, for both Cabling Installation & Maintenance magazine and its website CablingInstall.com. He currently provides trade show, company, executive and field technology trend coverage for the ICT structured cabling, telecommunications networking, data center, IP physical security, and professional AV vertical market segments. Email: [email protected]

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