Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)
I was a &quot;broadband technician&quot; around then and AT&amp;T Broadband did not give AF if you were stealing cable or not. I only handled cable modem installs and quit after a year to go major in philosophy and because:<p>- Getting quietly threatened once (with AR-15 up against the customer&#x27;s front door) on a troubleshooting call that I wasn&#x27;t able to leave until &quot;the internet started working&quot;.<p>- Having to increasingly go do cable TV disconnects because people were usually in a bad way and I had more than one colleague that had either had a gun pulled on them or straight-up shot and left to die up a pole for most of a day while trying to disconnect cable.<p>- Having to increasingly go on cable TV installs because people&#x27;s shitty TVs backfeeding electricity into the cable line meant I was getting zapped at least once a week.<p>That said, I met a lot of cool people, gave out a lot of free TV&#x2F;HBO because I didn&#x27;t care unless the customer was a dick, wrote down a lot of funny stories and ultimately realized that I could go college in spite of dropping out of high school because I happened to install the non-traditional student advisor&#x27;s cable modem.<p>My colleagues said they&#x27;d see me back at the shop in four years after I graduated with a philosophy degree. Jokes on them, I dropped out after getting a job at Google.