[tortue0]

When I worked at an ISP in the 90s the amount of threats and verbal abuse from customers was wild.

One guy who ran a event ticket operation (selling tickets to events) we installed a T1 for the phone company wouldn't go out unless they could bring a security guard. The same guy once came to our office and waited outside in the parking lot and followed one of my coworkers home demanding that she fix his internet. Her father came out and confronted him and he took off.

Another time someone was mad that his address didn't qualify for DSL because "the man was keeping him down from getting fast internet".

Later in life I worked at the phone company and linemen told me stories about being high on a pole in rough neighborhoods and being accosted by folks on the ground brandishing pistols demanding to know whose phone line they were tapping (they tried to explain that stuff is done remotely but they didn't understand).

[znpy]

> "the man was keeping him down from getting fast internet".

as a non-american... who is supposed do be "the man" ?

[JoeAltmaier]

Any person in authority. In the abstract, the government or big business.