A few years ago, we had to retain an old laptop due to an ongoing court case. Neither side could agree on who should have custody of this potential evidence.

Every so often, the lawyers for one side or the other would ask for time-stamped photographic proof that we still had the laptop. As a result, we have a semi-time-lapse record of the way that battery expanded. The base of the laptop had the profile of a rugby ball by the end. There is no way they could have retrieved anything from it, had they needed it, by that point.

The court case was resolved before the battery actually exploded or burst into flames. By then, we had it in a fireproof box, in a corner of the garage, as far away from, ooh, everything else as we could physically get it. The e-waste site was… impressed… when we took it in for disposal.

I work at a repair shop that deals with some large companies as clients.

Customer: “I need my [item] repaired.”

Me: “Can I please have your company name, a phone number, and a contact name?”

Customer: “Oh… I’m new with my company, so I don’t have the phone number.”

Me: “No big deal; I can look it up. Just tell me the name of the company.”

Customer: “Uh…”

This guy’s brain totally blue-screens and I need to ask again.

Me: “The company name?”

Customer: “I don’t know.”

Me: “You don’t know the name of the company you work for?”

Customer: “I’m new!” 

He had to just leave. I would have liked to hear what he said to his boss.

I work in electronics repair. A man brings in a TV that’s in very bad shape. I run through all the issues with it (there are many), and I give him a quote.

Customer: *Stunned* “It’ll cost that much just to repair?”

Me: “And that’s with a discount.”

Customer: “Hmm, could you make it work without repairing it? I don’t want to have to pay so much.”

Me: “You want us to make the TV work without actually fixing it?”

Customer: “Yes.”

Me: “No.”

Customer: “Oh. Could you try?”

Me: “Could I try to make the TV work without actually fixing it?”

Customer: “Yeah.”

I stare at the TV. I wave my hands over it like some kind of magician.

Me: “Sorry, still no.”

He walked out quite upset.

This is back in 2009 when I work for an electronics repair store.

Customer: “My TV isn’t getting any signal! I need someone to come over and fix it!”

Me: “Let me get a little information first. What kind of TV is it?”

Customer: “Oh, the usual kind.”

Me: “What brand is it?”

Customer: “It’s just a TV!”

Me: “Can you see a brand name on the frame?”

Customer: “There’s no frame; it’s just a wooden box! What’s with all these questions?”

Me: “The TV is in a wooden box?”

Customer: “No, the TV is the wooden box!”

Me: “I’m going to hand you over to my manager, sir.”

I pass him over, and I hear my manager’s side of the conversation.

Manager: “Can you describe the TV for me, sir?”

Pause.

Manager: “I see… and how long have you had this TV?”

Pause.

Manager: “I see. And when did you lose your TV signal?”

Pause.

Manager: “And to confirm, your TV has dials to the right of the screen? And at the bottom of the screen… Yes, I know it’s wood, but just below the screen… what does it say?”

Pause.

Manager: “We’re not going to be able to help you, sir.”

Pause.

Manager: “Well, sir, that would be because your TV is from the 1970s and it will be unable to detect digital TV signals. You need to get a new TV.”

Pause.

Manager: “…yes, getting a new TV will mean the picture is in color, sir.”

Pause.

Manager: “Well, a lot has changed in the last fifty years, sir.”

Pause.

Manager: “I do believe there are more than four channels on TV now, yes.”

Pause.

Manager: “Yes, sir, it will come with a remote. You won’t have to turn the dials anymore. In fact, I don’t think it will have any dials.”

Pause.

Manager: “Yes, we have plenty of secondhand TVs on offer. Feel free to come by and ask for [Manager] and I will be happy to help you.”

They finally hang up and my manager comes up to me.

Manager: “If you see a guy come in later who looks like he’s from the past, send him my way.”

I have always been interested in electronics and did a lot of reading and studying on my own, and I was very good at buying things at swap meets and repairing them and reselling them as a teen. For my first real paying job, a friend of my mom knew a guy who ran a place that supplied answering machines to businesses. They were new tech back then. She said he was desperate for someone who could fix them as he had ones with issues spilling over the shelves, so I went to see him.

It was an interesting meeting — a middle-aged businessman and me. I was fifteen or so. We kind of eyed each other.

Owner: “Can you fix these machines?”

I was pretty sure I could, and when he pulled out the service manuals for them, he had a couple that were based on the same base, and I was quite sure.

Owner: “What do you want to be paid an hour?”

Me: “I get $3 an hour for watching the kid next door on occasion, so… $3 an hour?”

He pondered that for a minute and made me an offer I could not refuse: $10 cash for each one I fixed. I quickly agreed, and I agreed to stop by after school the next day with my tools to dig in.

The next day, I showed up, and he took me to the back. Sure enough, he had a couple of big sets of industrial shelves overflowing with the things. I started pulling them off and looking at them. He gave me a smile and drifted off and left me to it.

I quickly discovered this guy had no tech skills whatsoever. None. Nada. Most of them had a brainlessly simple problem. The outgoing message was kept on a big loose loop of tape with a metallic splice at the end/beginning that went past two posts; this told the thing the tape had gone all the way around and to stop and turn on the cassette recorder for the incoming message. The splices and the posts got dirty and did not make good contact, so the tape would just go on forever.

About three minutes with some alcohol and a Q-tip cleaning those parts as well as the other things in the tape path not only had them going again but sounding like new. I cleaned the front panels up with some spray cleaner and hit the wooden cases with some wood cleaner, and they would look like new. I spent more time carefully coiling up the power cords than repairing them, but when I was done, they looked and sounded like new.

The owner came back to check on me a couple of hours later.

Owner: “I just came to see if you’re going to be able to crank one out for me tonight.”

I pointed to a pile of five or so.

Me: “Check those out.”

His eyes just about popped out of his head.

I got nearly ten done a night for a while. It did slow down a bit once I got the easy ones knocked out, but I just kept picking the low-hanging fruit, learning more and more about them, and getting deeper and deeper into them. He also had units coming in all the time, so I did still have some easy ones mixed in with the bunch.

I thought he was going to soil himself when we settled up at the end of the first week; I had spent like three afternoons there and gotten nearly thirty of them fixed. It was a really good payday. He was not super happy with our agreement, but he had proposed it, and he had someone who was kicking a** getting them fixed, so he was cornered into honoring it. It was not lost on him that he could have been paying me like $12 a night and I would have been happy with that, but he thought he would get the better of me.