What's it like being a tech, you might wonder. Well, wonder no more!
6:00 - Up.
7:20 - Out.
8:00 - At 'em.
1. "Phone will not turn on, has been going faulty past few days. Started with charger icon showing up without it being plugged in, and now theres no display at all"
Rear case is melted, the main board inside the phone has a big scorched area where the components are charcoal. BER'ed it.
(BER, if you recall, is Beyond Economical Repair. It's our little way of saying 'screw you and your ex-warranty'; it applies if a phone is too badly damaged to be repairable, or is reported as stolen, etc.)
2. Want a software update because the phone is 'crashing'. They hosed it up with apps; did a reset, all good.
3. Can't receive calls. Turns out to be true, and they forgot to tell me the home key wasn't working. Software update fixed both.
4. "no display", because they cracked the LCD. Quoted for Out Of Warranty repair.
5. Turns off randomly; this one's difficult to diagnose, I don't have the tools, so sent to level 3.
Allocations dumps more phones on my desk. I don't need more phones yet.
6. "no power" and reboots randomly. The power turns out to be fine, but sent the reboot issue to level 3 just in case.
7. I9100, liquid damage to the charger port - we're allowed to replace it in warranty on this model only, so replaced.
Allocations dumps more phones on my desk. Again.
8. "no power", and it's true. Not the battery, charging port, charger, or visible damage, so sent to level 3.
9. "no power", fixed by cleaning the dirt out of the phone.
10. "not charging", and it's not the usual suspects, so sent to level 3.
11. "no power", and there never will be - the phone's completely encrusted in rust and corrosion. BER'ed it.
12. Signal problems, but not when I test it; sounds like the sim card is faulty. So I send it as No Fault Found with a suggestion to check that.
13. Charging and signal problems, because there's lots of liquid damage. BER'ed it.
Allocations dumps a whole lot more phones I don't need on my desk.
14. "no power", because of liquid damage again. BER'ed the fuc- um, it.
15. "no power", because the customer has managed to crumple up the pins in the charging port. Quoted them for an Out of Warranty repair.
First break! Coffee coffee coffee coffee.
16. "the power key doesnt work the phone will not switch on"
The phone's filled with dirt and some minor liquid damage; cleaned it up and tried it out, and it worked fine. Power key was just about the safest thing in there.
17. They want a software update because of microphone and signal problems. Microphone is fine, signal looks fine, sent the phone to calibration for main board signal/power testing. If it passes, it's good.
18. Serial complainer, but I can't prove the signal didn't drop, so sent the phone to calibration to be sure.
19. "no power"... wait for it... yes, liquid damage. BER'ed it.
20. Phone starts freezing when the battery charge gets low. Our Cadex battery tester is down for maintenance, but it's clearly a faulty battery... and out of warranty by date. Sent as No Fault Found, with a recommendation they replace the battery.
21. I9100, liquid damage, charger port - replaced it as usual.
22. The first phone I sent to calibration passed; nothing left to do but call it repaired.
23. The second phone I sent to calibration passed too.
24. They want a software update because the phone is 'crashing'. The phone refuses to do anything interesting at all, so updated and done.
25. 'short battery life' - please, not so much detail. I can't find anything really wrong, but software (your random apps from Honest Lou's Website Of Great Apps, only 1.99 each) is a common cause, so updated it.
Can I go home yet? Nope, just break time. Coooffeeeeeee.
26. Turns off randomly; we've seen this before. Sent this one to level 3 as well.
27. "not charging". Cleaned the grit, pocket lint, etc out of the charging port; hey presto. Fixed.
28. "MOBILE PHONE HAS A NUMBER OF ISSUES: INTERNET DOES NOT CONNECT AT TIMES, WHILST RETRIEVING EMAILS CONNECTION ERROR IS COMMON, CAPTURING PHOTOS DO NOT APPEAR PROPERLY IN GALLERY AND THE GALLERY APP ITSELF DOES NOT LOAD SOME TIMES. SW UPDATE MADE NO DIFFEREN"
Blah blah blah de blah. A bunch of non-issues (what way is properly? how often is some times?) It all worked fine when I tried it, except that I can't try to get your emails nohow. But the LCD had 'shadows' where the display was burnt into it. First I'm told to send that for quote, then to just repair it; I do as I'm told like a good little tech monkey. Nobody ever complains when they get a new screen, so we're fine.
29. Possible signal problems; sent it to calibration to make sure it's working.
Shift change; the morning people are going home, the lucky sods, and the afternoon people arriving.
30. Turns off randomly; another special little present for level 3.
31. "not charging"; it's charging, but it's getting stuck in the powering-on cycle. It's an old model, so sent to the flash bench (the people what do software updates all day) to be updated.
32. I9100, charging port, liquid, the usual replacement.
33. "the handset wil not charge, it drops out then the phone tuns back off, the phone clearly has a fault with the battery"
Or maybe it's the liquid damage on the battery connector and the charging port, which I just quoted as an Out of Warranty repair.
Will to live... fading...
34. The display "went purple and then black" at the top, presumably after it got that crack through the middle - quoted as an Out of Warranty repair.
The last three weeks of QA reports show up in email. Let's see... one quality fail out of 85 repairs tested; one fail out of 64 tested; and 4 fails out of 87 tested. I am safely in the clear on failure rates.
35. Network/sim card issue.
... and this is where the wheels came off. Stores, where all our parts come from? Their system went down. Completely. Thud. And something lost power, because all the ionizers (air guns) in the shop went gradually dead. Good times! So did Stores let people know what was up? Ha ha, of course not! No, we all just waited for our parts... and waited... and waited... for 46 minutes.
By the time everything came back up, I had six phones open on my bench, all waiting for parts or waiting for earlier phones to get logged in the system so that I could log the next ones... The order things were actually done in is very, very approximate.
Back to 35. Tested the phone, tried replacing the sim card reader; oh crap, that wasn't the problem. Returned the sim card reader, got yelled at for wasting parts (it's a tradition), and since all tests checked out, left with one option by elimination: the phone must be blacklisted (blocked as lost/stolen). BER'ed as blacklisted.
36. I9100, liquid, charging port, replaced that one too.
37. 'accelerometer problem'. Actually, you just needed to do a horizontal calibration. It's in Settings, in Display. It takes about a second or two.
38. Phone is back from calibration - but not calibrated. "No one is there," says the line manager. "Just fix it anyway." As fixing it requires calibration, and I can't request a magic wand with Stores still down, I shove the problem off to level 3. You're welcome, guys.
39. Hunk of junk that may once have been phone in for 'software update'. Cleaned, discovered that touchscreen looks like an ice rink after a hockey fight; if it's working it won't be for long, so quoted for Out of Warranty repair.
40. 'software update', to fix signal and power issues. I don't think so. The phone's turning off randomly, so off to level 3 it goes.
Ten hours down. Never want to see another phone. I can go home at last. I breathe the sweet air of freedom, trudge home, and lapse into a coma across the bed. ... until tomorrow morning, when I'll discover I have no clean uniforms.
