MacTech
08-08-2006, 10:13 AM
For some reason, i feel like crawling into a cave and hiding from the world in general, other times i feel like grabbing my 12-gauge and just going postal....
this whole month at work has been hellish....
first off, up here in New England, we've been having some rather intense thunderstorms, there's a never-ending supply of customers bringing in their machines with blown ethernet ports because *THEY WERE TOO STUPID TO DISCONNECT THE ETHERNET LINE DURING A THUNDERSTORM!*, and coincedentally had a *power surge* come up their coaxial cable lines or phone lines, blowing out the ethernet port on the logic board
you can get power surges up the television cable that connects to your cable modem, and that surge will go right into the ethernet port, blowing it out, and since Macs have Ethernet integrated into the logic board, that means I have to replace the bloody *logic board*....
i have so many machines in the queue that the repair queue is 7-8 *BUSINESS* days (M-F) before it even gets on the bench for diagnosis (the customer is told this at drop-off), yet i invariably get incessant phone calls from *MORONS* who dropped their machine off *two* days ago, wondering if it's done yet, AARRRGGGHHHH!!!
NO, it's not done yet, MORON, because you only dropped it off TWO days ago!, pissing off the tech by constantly pestering him is *not* a good idea....
on top of that, the eMac (1.25GHz), (a 60 pound Mac, in a *slippery* case with *NO* carrying handle), has a known flaw with the logic board, it pops capacitors and fails, Apple has a repair extension program out for this machine, but the machine is a pain in the arse to work on, as it's so cumbersome, we have a bunch of *those* in as well, with impatient customers, and to top it all off, the logic board is on *BACKORDER!*, Apple has NO recoverry date, i've had machines waiting for parts for over a *month*, there's nothing I can do, aside from update the customer "yep, still on backorder, still waiting", and wait for Apple to get off their arse and ship the bloody parts
there's a similar REA program for the original iMac G5's, and yes, you guessed it, a lot of *those* in as well, *AND* (drumroll please...) THOSE parts are on BACKORDER as well!...
but wait, it gets "better"....
this week, i finally recieved two backordered eMac logic boards, installed them in their requisite machines.....
the *replacement* boards, boards i have been waiting a *month* for, were *DEFECTIVE!*....
one would pop the optical drive tray open, and not permit it to close, it also didn't see the hard drive, the other board had bad video ram
and the logic boards are *STILL ON BACKORDER!!!!!*
but wait, i'm not done *yet*....
one of my backordered iMac logic boards came in, the customer's board was spiked by a CABLE LINE POWER SURGE (that a $40 surge protector with coax. protection would have stopped...), so i put the new logic board in the iMac......
*THIS* board was *ALSO* DEFECTIVE!!! startup chime only, no video, just the high speed fans....
and yes, you guessed it, the replacement board is on *BACKORDER*
on top of all of this, constant calls from impatient customers wondering if their machine is ready yet....
and just to make matters even worse, we've been getting a bunch of custoners come in with failing/dead hard drives, drives that have their entire life/music collection/irreplacable photos/the only copy of their business files on them, the drives are either failing or already dead, data is inaccesable with off the shelf diagnostic/repair software, as these are *hardware* failures (mostly IBM DeathStar, errr....DeskStar drives)
and the customers don't have backups/have never performed backups, they've lost *everything*, and suddenly, it's "my" fault that *they* didn't back up their data???
we tell *every* customer that purchases a Mac from us to consider purchasing an external hard drive for backup purposes, i even show them *how* to back up the drive using Carbon Copy Cloner, but 99% of them do not take our advice, believing that they'll be okay, only to get pissed off at *me* when i tell them i can't recover their data and they have to send it to a horribly expensive data recovery company (average bill is around $2000 for data recovery)
look MORON, it's not *my* fault your data's toast, maybe if you *backed up your drive* you wouldn't be having this problem, heck, *MY* hard drive crashed last week, and since i had current backups, i was only out the time it took to replace the drive and reclone the data over from *MY* backup...
As i'm overly fond of saying;
"A lack of planning on your part *DOES NOT* constitute an "Emergency" on MY part..."
ever wonder why i suddenly feel like grabbing my shotgun and going postal?
I *HATE* the public....
Oh yeah, forgot to add....
last week, one of our salesguys switched to part-time hours (2-6:30 PM), so from 10-2 it's just myself and Bill (Sales) in the store, it's been *incredibly* busy this last week, all during the morning hours, and on top of that, the frakking phone doesn't stop ringing (i need to repress my instinctive MACTECH SMASH PHONE, SMASH, SMASH, SMASH, PHONE BAD!!!! urge whenever the frelling thing rings)
at least it gets a little easier when Steve gets in and helps handle the load...
not today, he's just called in sick, it'll just be Bill and I today, today's gonna *suck*.....
Hmm, wonder how well a Ka-Bar USMC blade will impale a phone?
this whole month at work has been hellish....
first off, up here in New England, we've been having some rather intense thunderstorms, there's a never-ending supply of customers bringing in their machines with blown ethernet ports because *THEY WERE TOO STUPID TO DISCONNECT THE ETHERNET LINE DURING A THUNDERSTORM!*, and coincedentally had a *power surge* come up their coaxial cable lines or phone lines, blowing out the ethernet port on the logic board
you can get power surges up the television cable that connects to your cable modem, and that surge will go right into the ethernet port, blowing it out, and since Macs have Ethernet integrated into the logic board, that means I have to replace the bloody *logic board*....
i have so many machines in the queue that the repair queue is 7-8 *BUSINESS* days (M-F) before it even gets on the bench for diagnosis (the customer is told this at drop-off), yet i invariably get incessant phone calls from *MORONS* who dropped their machine off *two* days ago, wondering if it's done yet, AARRRGGGHHHH!!!
NO, it's not done yet, MORON, because you only dropped it off TWO days ago!, pissing off the tech by constantly pestering him is *not* a good idea....
on top of that, the eMac (1.25GHz), (a 60 pound Mac, in a *slippery* case with *NO* carrying handle), has a known flaw with the logic board, it pops capacitors and fails, Apple has a repair extension program out for this machine, but the machine is a pain in the arse to work on, as it's so cumbersome, we have a bunch of *those* in as well, with impatient customers, and to top it all off, the logic board is on *BACKORDER!*, Apple has NO recoverry date, i've had machines waiting for parts for over a *month*, there's nothing I can do, aside from update the customer "yep, still on backorder, still waiting", and wait for Apple to get off their arse and ship the bloody parts
there's a similar REA program for the original iMac G5's, and yes, you guessed it, a lot of *those* in as well, *AND* (drumroll please...) THOSE parts are on BACKORDER as well!...
but wait, it gets "better"....
this week, i finally recieved two backordered eMac logic boards, installed them in their requisite machines.....
the *replacement* boards, boards i have been waiting a *month* for, were *DEFECTIVE!*....
one would pop the optical drive tray open, and not permit it to close, it also didn't see the hard drive, the other board had bad video ram
and the logic boards are *STILL ON BACKORDER!!!!!*
but wait, i'm not done *yet*....
one of my backordered iMac logic boards came in, the customer's board was spiked by a CABLE LINE POWER SURGE (that a $40 surge protector with coax. protection would have stopped...), so i put the new logic board in the iMac......
*THIS* board was *ALSO* DEFECTIVE!!! startup chime only, no video, just the high speed fans....
and yes, you guessed it, the replacement board is on *BACKORDER*
on top of all of this, constant calls from impatient customers wondering if their machine is ready yet....
and just to make matters even worse, we've been getting a bunch of custoners come in with failing/dead hard drives, drives that have their entire life/music collection/irreplacable photos/the only copy of their business files on them, the drives are either failing or already dead, data is inaccesable with off the shelf diagnostic/repair software, as these are *hardware* failures (mostly IBM DeathStar, errr....DeskStar drives)
and the customers don't have backups/have never performed backups, they've lost *everything*, and suddenly, it's "my" fault that *they* didn't back up their data???
we tell *every* customer that purchases a Mac from us to consider purchasing an external hard drive for backup purposes, i even show them *how* to back up the drive using Carbon Copy Cloner, but 99% of them do not take our advice, believing that they'll be okay, only to get pissed off at *me* when i tell them i can't recover their data and they have to send it to a horribly expensive data recovery company (average bill is around $2000 for data recovery)
look MORON, it's not *my* fault your data's toast, maybe if you *backed up your drive* you wouldn't be having this problem, heck, *MY* hard drive crashed last week, and since i had current backups, i was only out the time it took to replace the drive and reclone the data over from *MY* backup...
As i'm overly fond of saying;
"A lack of planning on your part *DOES NOT* constitute an "Emergency" on MY part..."
ever wonder why i suddenly feel like grabbing my shotgun and going postal?
I *HATE* the public....
Oh yeah, forgot to add....
last week, one of our salesguys switched to part-time hours (2-6:30 PM), so from 10-2 it's just myself and Bill (Sales) in the store, it's been *incredibly* busy this last week, all during the morning hours, and on top of that, the frakking phone doesn't stop ringing (i need to repress my instinctive MACTECH SMASH PHONE, SMASH, SMASH, SMASH, PHONE BAD!!!! urge whenever the frelling thing rings)
at least it gets a little easier when Steve gets in and helps handle the load...
not today, he's just called in sick, it'll just be Bill and I today, today's gonna *suck*.....
Hmm, wonder how well a Ka-Bar USMC blade will impale a phone?