Extreme difficulty contacting manager when needed

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I am a Premise Technician for AT&T, installing Uverse. I've been doing this for about 20 months now and there are many aspects I really enjoy about the job. However, this means I'm out on my own all day and sometimes spending hours at a time at a customers house getting their service up and running.

There can be a lot of things to this job that are difficult but the biggest one, communicating with my manager, has now become a major problem and I am now on a 9 month performance notice which, if violated, could escalate to termination.

I don't know if anyone knows what it's like being a Prem Tech for AT&T, but it can be very demanding and challenging. The good thing is that there are very specific guidelines for every process and procedure that I have to do. But, reality is not black and white as words on a page and more often times than not, exceptions arise where I am unable to follow some of the processes and procedures. This is the point I must contact my manager. Just to inform him. Even if I damage someone house or completly mess things up...it's ok as long as he knows. Seems like such a simple task... but instead, I try to figure it out myself or work around the obstacle, or worse, try to cover it up, in order to complete the job.

I don't quite understand why it is so difficult to just give him a call. I really need some kind of advise or maybe a different way of thinking about it...something...any input would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Well...ending getting sent home today, with pay, to consider whether I want to continue working this job or not. Of course I do! WHY IS IT SO DAMN HARD TO COMMUNICATE!!
Just sick of it all...

Are you saying that you struggle yourself to be willing to contact your manager and let him know, or that your manager is hard to get in touch with?

Either way, would email be an acceptable method of contacting him with the information? If so, you could probably set up form email templates for yourself so that all you have to do each time is change the customer's name or whatever other identifying information, and then pick one of a few pre-written explanations of the problem, perhaps adding an explanatory sentence or two each time. This might be much easier than a call and also easier than making a custom email each time.

I deal with similar stuff, though in a very different job.

I feel like I have to solve everything by myself, even though it is reasonable and expected that I consult with my manager whenever an unusual situation comes up.

I think part of the problem is some kind of block against initiating calls. I am still working this out, but I have two things that can help. One is to use a text chat program instead of a voice call, if only to say "can we have a quick call about an issue that's come up?" The other is to have a little card with a script for the phone call. The script is exceedingly simple and seems so trivial that it shouldn't be necessary, but thinking of initiating the call by reading the card somehow makes it possible (I have one for calls to clients, and a different one for calls to my boss)

For example:
"Hi, this is X, I have an issue with Y I wanted to consult about, if you have a minute"

It sounds dumb, I know--but it's working for me.

Good luck.

I send an e-mail to my boss when I cannot speak her personally. The same with other colleagues that can give me tasks.

In case of Jlgreen, is it okay according to the procedures to send mail to you manager?

Thinking of this, I am considering adding my boss to my Whatsapp contacts. If there are serious problems, I could chat with her. I could talk with her about this. But that is rarely needed, because her office close to mine, most of the time she is present and problems are often not so urgent that I would need immediate contact to her. I can just wait when she is away and will come a few hours later.

Sometimes, assigning a time to make the call helps. I tell myself "when the second hand sweeps the 12, I will make the call" or "At 3:50, I will call".

Can't you just Q him? or does he not use Q?