Anyway. They called to let us know our fibre cable would be installed. Enthusiastically we asked, when they would come, only to learn that they were already standing in front of our door. This demanded a certain flexibility on our side but, not wanting to risk a new appointment in a totally unclear, but probably very distant future, we welcomed them in.

Just having processed the first surprise of RDS showing up at all, we immediately faced something else, which struck us as slightly odd: there were 5 (in words: five) people at the entrance to our humble abode. As a way of greeting we confronted them with the fact that we had been waiting for three months and that they now showed up with five people, askin if they thought this to be overly efficient. Romanians among the readers of this blog will know, what they said: "We don't know anything about that. We just go where they send us, when they send us." Surprise, surprise ...

They also explained, that some of the guys were still young or at least new on the job and had to be trained. I thought that made a kind of sense. Pulling cables, putting the right connectors and/or jacks on them, configuring the pseudo modem thingy, etc. I tried and managed to see that this requires some training.

Except, it turned out to be not like that at all. So here is, how I perceived and understood the roles of these five people:

• One of them was obviously in charge. Talking and coordinating a lot, but not really doing any manual work. Label: Manager
• One of them operated the power drill, drilling a whole through our wall to let the fibre cable come into our living room. Label: Driller
• One of them pushed the fibre cable from inside through the newly drilled whole to the outside. Label: Cabler
• One of them pulled the fibre cable through the newly drilled whole as soon as it showed up on the outside of the wall. Label: Cabler
• One of them was driving the car. Label: Driver

At this point it became a little more difficult for me to see the sense in having a team of five doing this job.

Even so, they required backup.

Our apartment is on the first floor. Hence the cable coming out through the wall can only be reached by means of a ladder. Alas, the team did not have one at hand. Displaying confidence rather than despair, the manager made a call and (relatively) shortly after that a second car pulled up in front of the house, thereby crowding up the street rather significantly.

The second car was identical with the first one (kind of a medium sized transporter) except it had a ladder mounted on the roof and only two people in it: one driver, one ladder guy (has to server as a label until a better one comes along). The ladder guy took a short ladder from the car and used that one for getting to the long ladder on the roof.

Eventually the cable pulling was done and I was looking forward to get the modem thingy installed and finally have Internet access at home. Alas, it was not to be. I had to learn that the modem would be brought by a different team (don't ask why - this is a futile effort). With despair and fear fighting for the pole position amongst my most immediate emotional reactions I asked, when we may expect them to bring it and received the obvious answer: tomorrow, of course.

Until then it had been a weird morning. But when they told me that the other team (at least two people, I daresay) will bring the modem and yet another one will come to finalize the cable connections (this because in all Brasov, RDS seems to have only two pieces of the required equipment for doing this), I finally succumbed to the long held back laughter. I may have sound a bit maniacal, but keep telling myself that this was the only sane thing to do.

So here we are:

• 7 people
• 1.5 hours
• 1 hole
• 1 cable

And of course the hope of getting the installation finished tomorrow. However this ends, I will let you know.