We Can't Win

When I call someone up (with an 'Evil Empire courier' list), I have one goal and one plan: arrange for their possibly-broken phone or tablet to travel from THEM to US. If they want anything else whatsoever, I can give them someone else's number to call.

This is too complicated for some people.

Or maybe they're just lonely.

One guy treated me to about 8 minutes of how he would like the world, the repair process, the Evil Empire, etc, to work, but didn't ever get down to the specifics of what he would like me (or anyone) to actually do. So I said 'mm hmm' and did nothing.

One lady wanted us 'to actually fix her phone'. From the records, it's been sent in four times: no fault found no charger sent, no fault found no charger sent, no fault found charger is broken recommend she replace it, no fault found CHARGER IS BROKEN TELL HER TO REPLACE IT. So in a tone of tender concern (I hope), I tell her that we can absolutely look at every single part under a 10x microscope again, no problem, but I see in the notes that her charger is definitely faulty, I do apologize if they didn't pass that on clearly...?
She sent it back in. The engineer is going to be fantasising about stabbing her with the soldering iron, I suspect.

A Tale from the Phones

So, having gone to the dark side and traded in my torque driver for a headset, I may not have more stories for this blog.

Then again...

About 3% of the jobs which are booked in are cancelled before being collected because 'oops, it is charging now'.

About .5% to 1% of the jobs which are booked in are never collected because the only contact number we have is... the broken handset's number.

So for now, stay tuned.

Tales Among Techs

I heard this story from Tomasz, who heard it from a friend of his on the night shift. These are the things we talk about while we work.

Apparently this night tech got a phone sent in with the problem that the game Angry Birds wasn't on the phone; the customer had seen an advertisment on TV for the game and wanted to know why they didn't have it.

I don't know how the tech made "because you didn't buy and download it" sound professional for the ticket system. I don't envy them.

Bulletin from the Department of Duh

Android phones let you change your screen timeout - the length of time before your screen goes black and locks and you need to press the button to wake it back up.

It turns out that setting your screen timeout to 1 second is not a good idea.

You may find that there is very little you can do with a smartphone in 1 second or less.

And your repair technician may nearly hurt herself laughing so hard.

Tin Hat Time

Fault Description: handset has possibile firm/spyware virus needs to be completely wiped and possible IMEI swap, when handset has been connected to a laptop and wifi services they have crashed.

1. There is no Android virus (code that inserts itself into another programme or data). There are Android trojans (code that doesn't do what it says it does), though.

2. What the hell does your IMEI have to do with it?

3. YOU HAVEN'T DOWNLOADED ANYTHING. I CHECKED. NOTHING. NO APPS. NO CAT PICTURES. YOU HAVEN'T. DOWNLOADED. ANYTHING.

4. I couldn't actually find anything wrong with the handset. I'm not saying you're complete crap with computers, but our computers and wifi didn't crash.



Final diagnosis: I think there's a loose nut behind the keyboard.

A Good Customer!

Every day, I get phones where the customer didn't bother sending the battery (when they're complaining about short battery life), phones where the customer sent a fake knockoff battery, phones where the customer sent a battery swollen into a balloon, phones where the customer sent a battery from a different model, if not a different manufacturer.

But today, I got a customer with power problems who sent in two batteries: a gen-u-ine battery from 2009, and a gen-u-ine battery from 2010, both in good shape except that they no longer work.

Bless your little cotton socks.

Sadly, both batteries are long out of warranty. But the Battery Fairy magically transformed them into one 2011 working battery. The Battery Fairy does not charge for this. The Battery Fairy only appears for customers who are both nice and lucky.

Frankenphone

Nevermind what they said was wrong with this phone; what wasn't?

I open it up, and one of the screws is the wrong screw. Okay.

And inside the rear case, the antenna module doesn't quite fit: it's from a similar model of phone.

And the volume key is the wrong one - the main board has four soldering connections, the volume key has three.

And the screen IS from the right model, but has clearly been replaced.

And there are a few extra bits of solder where there oughtn't be extra bits of solder. (There should never be extra bits of solder.)

At this point I checked the ticket just to make sure the customer details didn't say Dr. Frankenstein.

Then I BER'ed the thing for 'unauthorized rework', because there is no 'are you out of your tiny mind' option in the BER menu.