I am a mobile phone repair technician - a level 1 engineer. We all have our quirks and our silly moments, and I get to watch quite a few of them pass my workbench.

Tuesday, 20 November 2012

The Problem Is Not the Phone

For some reason, they always come in batches. Maybe it's the full moon?

"WHEN CUSTOMER PRINTS PHOTOS IT DOES NOT COME OUT CLEAR"

... so you sent your phone in. Unfortunately, I can't order the item that would fix this situation (either a new printer or a brain), so I just logged the phone as no fault found.

"switches off when calling. screen freezes on daily basis. had sent off before for same faults but not fixed."

Now, this one sounds very reasonable, doesn't it? Sure, that last part is kinda... ominous, but gosh, doesn't it sound like this is a broken phone?

Ah. But I have a 'repair history' tab, and as a special treat, I now have access to the ticket MANAGEMENT window. I see all, I know all.

For example, I know that this phone was logged as No Fault Found a month ago, and then exchanged by O2 anyway a few days later.

And you sent it back saying 'not fixed'.

There is no way that this is going to end well. Time spent thoroughly checking phone: 5 minutes. Time spent carefully typing up detailed cover-my-arse notes: 10 minutes. Result: no fault found.

"the phone won't hold the charge, also the background of screen is like a snowing flake background."

I had to show this ticket to the guy sitting next to me, Tomasz. He didn't miss a beat. "It's Christmas. It's normal."

I turned on the phone enthusiastically, because this I had to see! And it did look pretty cool, all the little dots of obvious liquid damage on the LCD...

I couldn't resist, I showed it to Daniel, our technical manager. He said it looked like liquid damage, too. Well, okay, he said 'Oh bloody hell', but I'm assuming that's what he meant.

Then I opened the phone. Oh bloody hell! A mass of corrosion and rust. I am deeply impressed that this phone actually turned on and, to some extent, functioned. I am so impressed that I mention this to the BER officer; "This phone works! No fault found, right?" "Sure!" he enthused, laughing while he authorized the phone as an official paperweight. "Just mark that everything's okay!"

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