can I get a knock, at the very least?

This afternoon, the kids and I, along with a couple of their pals, were returning home from the playground down the road. When we were walking by the parking lot, I noticed a UtiliQuest truck parked and also a series of white spray-painted lines on the lawn going from the FIOS box toward our house. When we signed up to have FIOS installed next week, the fine-print included a note that someone would come and mark up the lines about 24-48 hours before installation. Or, 8 days ahead of time, apparently. As long as the lines stay there, that's fine, I guess. The notice said that we didn't need to be home for this part of the installation process, either, so I figured the guy was doing whatever he needed to do.

As we got closer to our townhouse, I see a man walk out of our fenced-in patio area. JAM was already home, hanging out with a friend, so I figured that he'd let him in there. Or, my next thought was that maybe we had left the gate unlocked when the kids got out the bike and scooter that served as transportation that morning. But, the guy wouldn't just walk in there, I figured. Right?

Here's the actual exchange I had with the gentleman:

Me: "Excuse me, can I help you?"

Him: "Yeah, I'm just marking stuff, um, are you still having FIOS put in?"

Me: "Yes, next week. Do you need to be in our patio area?"

Him: "Um, I was just marking up the gas line, but it looks like you don't have that."

Me: "Okay. Did my son let you in the back area?"

Him: "No, the gate was unlocked."

Me: "Did you knock on our door first?"
Him: "No, the gate was unlocked."

Me: "I understand that, but as a homeowner, I would expect that you would knock on my door before entering into my private, fenced-in property."

Him: "Oh, I always just check the gate, then if it's locked, I knock on the door."

Me: "Well, if I looked out my window and saw you in my back area without having knocked first, I probably would call the police."

Him (chuckling): "Yeah, that wouldn't be the first time."

Me: 

(incredulous pause)

Me: "Well, then maybe you should think about making it your practice to knock on the door first, huh?" (head in hands) "Wowee zowie."

End scene.

What in the world?! My first issue is that we were explicitly told that we had to do nothing to prepare for this part of the installation, and that we didn't even need to be home for the process. So, did this guy really need to be on our patio? Am I crazy for expecting a representative of a company to first make an attempt at seeing if someone is at a residence before barreling into a fenced-in area of the property? Especially in our area, I would not be comfortable seeing some guy, wearing no uniform or other type of clothing to indicate a company affiliation, walking around my patio if I had been inside the house.

So, I went inside, shaking my head and left this genius to continue spray painting lines on the lawn. I can only hope that our actual installation workers will have more sense than this guy.


Wondering how others would have reacted,