It seems I have made enemies of a few techs in another post but i wanted to put my 2 cents in.
I personally do not like when an installer is being rude. And no matter the job title, when a D* tech is at my house, he(or she, although I have never seen a female tech) is a representative of D*. If I have a question, why not answer it? Yes, it may be a slight inconvenience but if you know the answer, why not tell me.
Another thing, I have gone out of my way to help techs when they come to my house. I have been the one to crawl under the house and run the cable, multiple cables in fact. I did this to save them time and the trouble of going underneath the house because it can be quite muddy. Why do this? Because as soon as they leave I'll go take a shower, they have to work all day with it. Its something to make life a little easier.
But if I call and set up an appointment with D* for them to send someone out to run the coaxial cable around my house 7 times and then to the receiver thats not even hooked up to a tv, I will get charged for it, and even if its "free" the money is coming from somewhere. The techs I've dealt with have always known why they were coming out before they started the trip out. If thats what I'm paying for, or if thats what D* is paying for, why not do it? Maybe reason with the customer in a nice tone? I'm not a tech but in my experience customers may make a request but ultimately look to you for an answer or input on the subject because in their eyes you are the genius on the matter.
I have had techs call me to confirm they are doing a HDDVR receiver upgrade in two rooms and when they get here they claim they didn't know and didn't pick up the receivers. Was I frustrated? Yes. Did I get angry, no. I simply asked him to do what he needed to do to get the receivers that I would be free for the rest of the day. He called another tech in the area, got two receivers from them, and came back and installed them. He is the best tech I have ever dealt with even after that happened. I would recommend him to anyone because he went the extra mile to make me happy. As a tech, you are representing D*, or at very least your contracting company. Whether you want to or not, you should try to make the customer happy within reason. If not, get into another line of work that doesn't involve customer interaction.