DIYbanter - View Single Post

wrote:

On Sat, 26 Nov 2005 15:52:36 GMT, "Pete C."
wrote:

Not entirely true, the few lucky people who have been able to find
honest, reliable mechanics do tend to speak highly of them.

Only those who have the sense to know the value of finding and keeping
a good mechanic (or any other tradesman/proffessional) There are fewer
of THEM out there than there are honest reliable mechanics.

Its like the days when there were real TV shops. The techs knew what
they were doing, and went to every available factory school to keep up
with the new designs. Most people thought you just shoved tubes in till
the set worked, and that it was criminal to even want to make minimum
wage. They were rude, ignorant, and price shopped for the cheapest
service calls. Well, guess what? The cheapest service calls were the
fly by night operators who worked out of the trunk of their car, or in
one case, a dirty old hippie in a VW van that reeked of marijuana some.
It was rare to find a good customer who understood that it took time to
repair something, and some parts took time to find.

We had a "Customer" take us to small claims court because we charged
for an estimate. He claimed that his mechanic didn't charge for an
estimate, so we had no right to, either. He and the judge had big
smiles on their faces as they told my boss he was wrong. My boss plopped
a RCA CTC38 series chassis on the Judge's bench and said, Well, in that
case would you mind telling me what's wrong with this set? The judge
started yelling that he had no idea what was wrong so my boss asked, If
you can't tell by looking, how can we? We have to find the problem,
replace the part and make sure there are no other problems before we can
give you an accurate estimate. He won the case.

It just wasn't fun any more after 25 years - and its gotten a whole
lot worse in the last 15 or more years.

Remember that the people bringing in the cars in the last 15 years or so
as you have noted, are the parents (or now their children) from the
generation that has deluded themselves into the belief that mechanical
trades (dirty jobs) are somehow devoid of education and skill and have
actively discouraged their children from having any interest in such
things.

This delusion of the PYVs (plastic yuppie vermin) is furthered by the
increasing complexity of cars and the thought that the grease monkeys
couldn't possibly understand anything about computers so they must just
be swapping parts until things magically start working.

And I got out of the mechanics trade and into the computer service
world - - -.

It's only going to get worse too...

That's what I decided 17 years ago. And I was right.

Now everybody's kid wants to be a computer tech instead of a mechanic
- and for the same reason kids wanted to be mechanics 40 years ago. 40
years ago the "gearheads" wanted to be mechanics to fool around with
their first love - the CAR.
Now the "computer nerds" want to be able to play with THEIR first love
- the Computer / Game console/ Whatever.
And they will work for almost nothing just to be able to do it. and
their method of repair??? "swapping parts until things magically start
working"

I started computer repair on the old Commodore 64. A scope and good
soldering skills were a must. I built a test bed with ZIF sockets to
test the different chips so I could verify that they were bad, and to
test new chips when they arrived for wherever I could buy them. Now,
I'm old and disabled so I repair PCs as a hobby. I collect dead and half
stripped computers and build working systems from the parts. They are
given to the local "Vets helping Vets" program so they can be given to
disabled Veterans who can not afford to buy a computer. It gives me
something to do for a few hours a day, but I really miss building TV
stations and telemetry equipment for the aerospace industry.

Time for a THIRD career?? (4th if you include teaching)

Pete C.

--
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Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida