Here's a question about a situation perhaps many of us have faced.
With the blocks of dead time experienced in this business of late I
find that I have opportunities to write this sort of drivel. Maybe
I'll try to have it published, hah! As I'm sure you all know these
days they all ask two questions. "Do you do home service" and "what
will the job cost"? And naturally especially over the phone it's tough
to predict. It could be a connector, a bad cable or an intermittent
component or sometimes, God only knows what.

Many jobs around here are in rural areas, so I usually will tell them
that the service call is 65.00 and the time I spend in the house is
billed at 60.00 an hour in fifteen minute increments. (I usually won't
spend more than 45 minutes trying to troubleshoot a problem in the
home, unless I'm absolutely certain as to what it is and have no doubt
that I will be able to fix it there). Up front I also add that I may
rarely be able to fix a serious problem on a home call and add that
often times the set may have to go to the shop. I also let them know
that, (with two bad rotator cuffs and back problems), I won't be
taking their 50 inch plasma set off the wall nor will I be moving
their projo either. They would have to bring it to me. Basically in a
nut shell I try to make them understand that on a home call I may not
be able to fix something serious, that really should be done in the
shop. And these days most of the time on a projection, tube or DLP
they don't want to spend a lot of money anyway. But to be very clear
with the exception of flat screens(which I can do on the dining room
table if I really had to) in all honesty I don't even have room for a
huge DLP or projo elephant in the paltry corner of my basement I call
my shop either. So although I rarely get calls on them anymore I let
them know that I won't have those come in and so they do understand
that if it's not fixable in the home it usually won't get fixed. I try
to be up front and as as forthcoming with this as I can.

So the dilemma is maybe I'll be able to fix this set in the home, but
if I can't and it has to go to the shop, I'm not taking it. And maybe
the girl who called me can't move it without help either. And that's
assuming she would even want to proceed with the extra expense of
moving the set and whatever the repair might turn out to be anyway.
What I've been finding, and based on past experience is she probably
won't want to spend the money to have this done.

So at this point I've spent 30 -45 minutes in the home and determined
that this dog's barking. Now is it unjustified of me to expect to be
paid for going out and trying to see if it's something simple knowing
full well if it's not I'm going to walk away from it?

I went on a projection call the other day. "fuzzy picture". I took one
look at it and it had coolant contamination written all over it. I
gave the guy a price and of course they want to know what else could
it need. I won't lie to them. It's an old set and who knows whats
going to happen a week afterwards? So it was a fifty mile trip and
65.00 but it was a nice ride, and the coffee was good.

Fifteen years ago the local Yellow Pages was full of TV repair shops.
Except for me there are now two other guys still involved in
television within 50 miles. One is 85 and rarely opens the store. And
even if he did it looks like a page right out of 1950. The other guy
is about the same age and does some sales I guess but little else. So
for all intents and purposes, for the time being anyway, (and I don't
see any young guys lining up to be TV repairmen) it's me, and I've
been told only me. If not for the commercial work we would really be
scratching.

I wonder how some of you guys also in the consumer electronics repair
business have handled these sort of things?
Lenny