We all have funny stories from work. In many cases the stories we tell are
funny now, but they certainly weren’t funny at the time.

My introduction to AV installation was far from auspicious. I was working at
an AV specialty retailer and we (mostly I, which is how I got the nickname
“Projector Boy”) had begun to get serious about selling home cinema
projectors. I hatched a plan to tap into the existing Component Video
distribution setup that served the TVs in the four vignettes in the front of
the store and run three RG-6 lines to one of the three sound rooms at the
back of the store to serve HDTV to the projectors that we had showcased
there.

I was comically unprepared for the task I took on.

Have you ever tried to fish RG-6 behind drywall without rods to pull the
wire? Yeah, it’s possible, but not easy.

The total length of the run from one end of the store through the suspended
ceiling was only about 100 feet. However, I was running three lines for
component video, but I only had one box of RG-6 to work with. The solution?
I made three trips. Efficiency? Who needs that?

When I got to the back of the store I discovered that above the suspended
ceiling the sound rooms were completely boxed in: not one but three stud
walls and the last two had pink fiberglass insulation stuffed between them.
That’s when I discovered that the lone rechargeable battery for the store’s
cordless drill could barely hold a charge. Using a large hole-cutter bit to
get through the drywall I had to take frequent breaks to put the battery on
the charger.

A job that a competent installer (which sure wasn’t me that day) could have
finished in an hour took me an entire day off the sales floor, and when I
was done I was covered in dust and fiberglass, and I was dirty, sweaty, and
tired from climbing up and down my ladder all day.

It was worth it though. My colleagues and I sold a lot more projectors once
we had a dedicated room for them, and my bumbling first ever installation
taught me the hard way about the importance of having the right tools for
the job. And my bull-headed albeit clueless determination to succeed was a
good start when I left to work for a custom installation company where
people who actually knew what they were doing could train me.