Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)
I was a "broadband technician" around then and AT&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's front door) on a troubleshooting call that I wasn't able to leave until "the internet started working".<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'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/HBO because I didn'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's cable modem.<p>My colleagues said they'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.