Taking inventory of all 70,000 telephone poles

Geeky Swedes Ballard

For more than twelve hours a day, Nick Thomas rides his bike from one telephone pole to the next, stopping at each one with a Qwest line to audit it.

He stops, nails a metal plate to the pole, then scans the barcode and enters the information into the computer he wears around his neck. Nick tells us that he’s on a team of six people from Alden who are canvassing the city taking inventory of all 70,000 poles, “We’ve only got 50 thousand left,” he told us. We ran into him at 7 p.m. Thursday evening just as he started on Ballard. “I’ve been out here since 7 a.m.” he says. He gets paid $1.50 per pole and says he’s been auditing about 200 poles per day. We talked with another auditor earlier who tells us that when telephone companies merged and Qwest finally took over, there wasn’t a good inventory of the poles. Nick says he’s got a big swath of Ballard to do, so if you see him, you’ll know what he’s up to.

Geeky Swedes

The founders of My Ballard

30 thoughts to “Taking inventory of all 70,000 telephone poles”

  2. Can someone tell me why, last December, a city light crew came to my neighborhood put in three new poles(one in front of my house), exchanged exactly one line from the old to the new pole, cut the old pole in half, anchored it to the new pole then left? We haven't seen them since.

  6. When pigs fly… it costs a ton of money (25-75K+ per block) put lines underground and there really isn't a reason put them underground. It's far less expensive to just have a power-line go down in the occasional wind storm and fix it. Most citys have power-lines in their residential neighborhoods. Not to mention that many people would complain because it would cost each household $25K+ to have a electrical company come out and dig a trench for the bury your Power, Phone, Cable… etc.

    I want them to bring FIOS to Ballard…

  9. Glad to see that we're paying $78,000/year salaries to people to walk around counting telephone poles. Speaks volumes about this city's priorities.

  12. He says he's averaging about 200 poles/day, at $1.50 per pole = $300/day x 5 days/week = $1500/week x 52 weeks a year = $78,000/year. Not a bad wage in these times, to ride around on a bicycle taking inventory.

    This is a perfect example of this city's misplaced priorities. Basic needs are ignored, public safety is quickly becoming just a fond memory, things are getting worse every day, yet the morans that purport to run this city feel it's a good use of taxpayer money to get a complete inventory of telephone poles – complete with barcodes, GPS coordinates, and digital photographs of the poles. Sure, it might be nice to have all that data for the planners to play with, but honestly, when we can't afford to keep the libraries open or put cops on the streets, they're spending that kind of money to count telephone poles?

    Unbelievable.

  15. I guess you missed the part about “more than twelve hours per day”? And that it's short-term piecework, presumably with no benefits?

    Sharon's right — he's making $25 an hour or less, and that's the equivalent of a full-timer making about half that, plus benefits.

  16. Yes!
    bzz – you misunderstood. This is a private project by Qwest to track down all of the poles its phone lines are attached to, so (e.g.) when there's an outage, their repair crews know where to start looking.

  18. Why aren't there any girl pole counters? I met Nick tonight, the guy in the picture at The Stepping Stone… the pole counter… it could be worse if your job is called “pole counter”. He sounded like he enjoyed the work but said that he works his ass off… at least 30mi a day.

  22. I've lived in said real cities. Have to say this is one area in which I DON'T want Seattle to follow in the footsteps of others. Buried lines offer no real advantage beyond aesthetics. Ever lived in one of those real cities when they have to do repair work? Here in Seattle it's nothing more than a double parked cherry picker – that's a lot less inconvenient than shutting down an entire block because they have to dig an access trench.

  23. You're an idiot.

    1) He's not being paid by the city.
    2) He's not getting any benefits.
    3) He's not being paid a salary.
    4) It's temporary work and temporary work is supposed to pay more than FTE work.
    5) Having an inventory is important. Helps to know where poles are at when lines fail.
    6) It's “MORONS” you moron!

  25. Nick here, (the tired, toned, tan guy in above picture :)
    While I am not an official spokeperson for my employer, I will try my best to clear up any confusion regarding my job.
    1. Alden Systems is a small, private company from Birmingham, AL. They provide high quality, custom utility-auditing/database services. There are Alden crews working all over the US. We are doing this for Qwest, with cooperation from all the other companies involved with above ground utilities.
    2. This is a contract job. I have no benefits, and have no guaruntee of how long my job will last.
    3. The point of the inventory is to first and foremost provide Qwest with the product they asked for, that being a detailed interactive map of where each and every pole they have equipment on is located, and what other lines and equipment are on each pole as well, and which need transfering or are abandoned and need to be pulled. Also, Qwest is charged rent for each pole they are attached to, even if its just a little hook for house drop, and as a result of our inventory they have found enough poles which no longer sport Qwest (which they were not informed of until now) to make the operation financially beneficial rent-savings-wise.
    4. City Light owns most poles. When they get damaged or are too old they put in a new one. Any other utility with equipment on the pole, i.e. Qwest and Comcast, etc, are then responsible to transfer their lines to the new pole. Citylight can only put in the new pole and transfer their power over. It is then up to them to notify the other companies, which they dont always do, or it takes 'em awhile.
    5. The whole thing is sort of disorganized, which is a big reason we are doing this utility audit. Many utility crews still use old hand drawn maps which have been photocopied so many times they are barely legible, and often it takes workers way too long to find the specific pole they are supposed to work on. This inventory/mapping project will solve this problem once and for all.
    6. I am just glad to have a job right now, and I feel bad for those who have no work. Sure hope things get better for everyone soon.

  26. We had underground lines where I lived in Kent. I'm not sure the undergroundness was completely to blame, but the power went out any time there was a lot of rain. There were more outages there than anywhere else I have ever lived…

  29. cheers for you, Mr. Thomas. Your job was created by some smuck in an office who did a feasability study on taking out the above-ground wire and replacing it with underground wire based on the recoverability of the materials aboveground, the pleasability of the democrats in the particular region of this company's customer base, and how much shit they'd have to take from the same customer base who is in doubt of your job's creation. The creation of which was their own enabling by democratically voting for the same stupid shmuck they themselves put in office. Applause to you. Guess you need to do some research before you elect your next public law-deciding (and contract-awarding) official.

    How stupid of you to complain. I only wish I had the same smarts as Mr. Thomas to go and seek out and perform the job that you same people so democratically created for Mr. Thomas, and yes, paid for with your own dollars, then so willingly detest. Idiots. Go Vote. But please, before that, have some morals and balls and brains. Or else just shut the hell up and leave Mr. Thomas alone.

  30. Think of this as “Mission Creep” for a moment.
    many countries have GPS satellites in orbit. Militaries have demonstrated how easy it is to fire rockets at them and knock them out. In this day and age (the way things are, but should not be) Just Think about what would happen to everything that is in the world- with no GPS.
    Think of ships, planes, ICBM’s (and their hegomony keeping us from WW3) think of what would happen when at the beginning of a big war (which we are seeing right now kindling in the middle east) if countires begin knocning out eachother’s GPS. Look at all the interfaces and ifrastructure, like maps, and shopping and pretty much everything we do, that has been laid on top of GPS coordinates. Now think of the “POLE INVENTORY” with barcodes readable from the street by passing vehicles equipped with infrared lasers to read all the barcodes as they pass. (look at how the tags are positioned) I believe this is backup plan, in case of GPS failure. I believe it’s not Qwest or whoever those private companies that are behind this. I believe it is those immoral/ammoral elements in our government that want everything to be traceable and numberable. Look at our pets. You are looking at our future.

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