That time a homeowner asked me to 'bend the light' through the fiber cable

I was running fiber in a house outside Phoenix and this guy seriously thought I could curve the cable around corners so the light would 'flow better' - he watched me for 10 minutes trying to explain physics while he just stared at the spool. Has anyone else had a customer ask for something that made zero sense technically?

3 comments

3 Comments

patricia55828d ago

The guy probably saw all those bending fiber optic cables in the ceiling and thought the whole thing worked like a garden hose. Nobody ever tells people that the light bounces off the inside walls of the cable, it doesn't just flow through like water. At least you got a free show out of it, watching him try to will the cable to curve like a snake. Next time someone asks that, just tell them you need to charge extra for the bending fee.

the_christopher28d ago

Bend the light"? Yeah, next time I'll just ask my photons to take the scenic route.

logan_young2928d ago

Bend the light" makes me wonder if the homeowner had some weird idea about light being like water in a hose. If he thought photons could negotiate corners better than they actually do, maybe he also believed his WiFi would travel faster through painted walls. Sometimes people just hear tech terms and make up their own rules for how stuff works.