DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- He was once an AT&T outdoor tech himself who "retired" or so he claimed in his failed campaign in the August primary for Volusia County chair. And so Greg Gimbert in a social media treatise to linemen, has nothing but admonition and disdain for utility cutomers he dismisses as "eaters" who have been without electricity since Hurricane Matthew's wrath six days ago.
In the treatise on his Facebook page to utility workers -- many from out-of-state here with their big trucks, entitled, "Life of a Lineman," Gimbert from the onset shows his contempt for those suffering from a lack of electrical power -- describing possible enccounters with skitzo druggies lurking from inside and warning of rabid dogs outside.
"You wonder if the back yard you are going in has Kujo ready to attack or some paranoid meth head sighting you up through the back window," Gimbert says -- this from someone who strung up telephone lines for AT&T, hardly a lineman dealing with damaged or downed power lines.
Gimbert continues in his negative vein, perhaps speaking from his own experience, which might ecplain why he no longer works for AT&T, in which he's told some people he was injured on the job and forced to retire: "You will show up to job site and the area is not prepared for your work or you were given the wrong materials to work with because old records are incorrect. You will be held to productivity measurements anyway and disciplined anyway."
And that's even before the linemen come across customers simply looking for some answers, whom Gimbert describes as vindictive once they reaLIze their questions will go unanswered.
"Random people stop you and expect you to answer questions about their home or their account. Then when you can not, they want to chat forever or file a complaint if you don't listen to them long enough over something you have no control over."
And after the emotional tiongue lashing, there's the physicality of the job: "Your arms and legs are covered in cuts and scrapes as you wade through ditches and other questionable bodies of standing water. You WILL have a whole range of infections over the course of a career because of the work environment."
Then again, Gimbert worked for AT&T at some point, but has been out of work for And Gimbert reflects on the grind of the job, from one day to the next and beyond.
"You work day, night, and in times like these BOTH. Sometimes in another state not seeing your family for weeks at a time," Gimbert says, adding, "You will work high in the air and deep underground. The underground is the worst due to build up of toxic gas and tight tunnels."
Then Gimbert warns of the consequences of trying to catch a breather, stating, "But the best part is when you stop for any length of time, from doing a job most people would not last 10 minutes doing, there will be some entitled eater to complain that you are not working hard enough."
Some entitled eater? Here-in Gimbert equates the utility-starved customer as an "eater," akin to a blood-thirsty zombie cannibal like those in those in the 2002 British post-apocalyptic horror film,"28 Days Later," directed by Danny Boyle, or the even-more terrifying fast-moving zombies in the sequel five years later, "28 Weeks Later," directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo.
Gimbert, ever the drama queen, wraps up his treatise "to all the linemen here in Florida, locals and temporary" encouraging them to rise above the post-apocalyptic humanoids and complete the task at hand; with his complete admiration, of course, with a "thank you" and advising them to "ignore the ungrateful."
Gimbert explains as if the sufffering utility customer is like the humans Charlton Heston;s astronaut-character "Taylor," defends in the 1968sci-fi movie "Planet of the Apes, " stating: "They are soft. They are spoiled. And sadly, they just don't know any better."
Then Gimbert warns of the consequences of trying to catch a breather, stating, "But the best part is when you stop for any length of time, from doing a job most people would not last 10 minutes doing, there will be some entitled eater to complain that you are not working hard enough."
Some entitled eater? Here-in Gimbert equates the utility-starved customer as an "eater," akin to a blood-thirsty zombie cannibal like those in those in the 2002 British post-apocalyptic horror film,"28 Days Later," directed by Danny Boyle, or the even-more terrifying fast-moving zombies in sequel five years later, "28 Weeks Later," directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo.
Gimbert, ever the drama queen, wraps up his treatise "to all the linemen here in Florida, locals and temporary" encouraging them to rise above the post-apocalyptic humanoids and complete the task at hand; with his complete admiration, of course, with a "thank you" and advising them to "ignore the ungrateful."
Gimbert explains as if the sufffering utility customer is like the humans Charlton Heston's astronaut-character "Taylor," defends in the 1968 sci-fi movie "Planet of the Apes, " stating: "They are soft. They are spoiled. And sadly, they just don't know any better."
Of 240,000-plus outages in Volusia County at the height of the storm, power companies have restored more than 225,700 of those outages as of Tuesday morning, leaving 14,300 in the dark as of 48 hours ago. There has not been a single complaint to law enfortcement of skitzo druggies or rabid dogs harassing linemen.
But that diodn't stop Gimbert from spewing his venom with responses from his inner circle of followers attaching one another with rough language to boot.