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Well I don’t really, but sometimes I seem to consider that opening an artery or two seems a logical conclusion to slapping my head off a brick wall.
Of course I refer to the old chestnut of advice in the public forums.
It amazes me how hypocritical we can be at times. We want all the technical information from manufacturers, most of whom we’re not agents for and yet, at the same time, we refuse to pass any of that to the public at large. Worse still, we are having a problem where members of the public advise other members of the public without any intervention from the trade.
Now I’m trying hard to restrain myself here and the best I can do is, WTF is that all about then?
That’s no different from us sharing information with one another! Not even slightly different.
I’ve been quiet (ish) for a while as I’ve been a tad busy of late and so I feel that I can indulge myself and go off on one.
I can totally see that we have to be careful in what we say for fear of legal action and putting people in harm’s way. But is that reason to be totally obstructive?
There’s a shedload of sites that you can share this sort of info on, DIY Not and How To Mend It are only two of the most prominant that spring to mind and have been mentioned. Big bad world out there on the internet you see, there’s always another site and Google has the answers whether we like it or approve of it or not.
If I want to find out how to hack the stanaz in my car I can. Ooops, I have already and that took me all of ten minutes. The car wasn’t produced prior to mid 2005.
Of course, if I want to strip the car to it’s component parts I can go onto Ebay and get the workshop CDROM and re-program the ECU if I feel like it as well, that’ll cost me £15. Of course the dealer will be well hacked off because I have his prized information…. oh well.
Will I do that?
No.
Why?
Because, frankly I can’t be arsed. I don’t have the time to learn and I don’t have the free time to do so. Apart from which if I make a mistake it could be a lot more painful than the original problem getting sorted.
Do I think for one minute I’m the only person that takes that line?
No, I don’t.
In short there’s always going to be people that think that they can do the job just as well as a pro, we’re not going to discourage them and we’re not going to get service work from them bar it being at the point where we really don’t want to know about it as it’s so cocked up.
And people think that they can DIY anything… boiler repairs, appliance repairs, car repairs, roofing, bathrooms, plumbing, electrical work…
The list just goes on and on.
Do I worry about it?
No.
I’ve been on the internet far too long and seen what goes off, I don’t need to worry as there’s always loads of people like me out there that don’t want the hassle. More than enough to keep my little repair business ticking over thanks. There’s only a few freeloaders out there that won’t pay for anything in comparison to those that will, even if they do moan about it.
But, shhh, don’t tell anyone okay, it’s a trade secret.
K.
Re: I wanna end it all now….
when my old uncle Erbert died he left me his set of chimney sweeping rods. they sit in the barn. the chimney sweep called last week great job no mess no hassle 40 quid. Im going to look at his bosch on friday, 40 quid. we’re both happy.
what goes around comes around.wilf 🙂
Re: I wanna end it all now….
Ultimately there are them that can an them that can’t, so those that can’t might want us to put it right, not always possible, our choice, leave them to get on with it. Them that can’t or may be a bit scared generally come to us, there’s quite a lot of them, let’s not be too worried 🙂
Re: I wanna end it all now….
The way I look at it is the fact that there are professionials and amatures.. DIY’s are amatures and they don’t have to make a living from a job.
As a professional I feel I owe it to a customer to do the best job I am capable of and know that when I go to a job the resulting repair comes from 50{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} know how and 50{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} experiance..
Some of the know how I might dispence free of charge to joe public.. but once they want my experence then I believe it should be paid for as it has taken years and many repairs on lots of diferent machines to gain that. It’s taken a lot of hard work, inginuity and sore knuckels to gain that experiance from my point of view… why should someone else get it for free..
It’s like the tale of the vending machine man who went into a office to unjam a coin in the vending machine.. the engineer went up to the machine and thumped it and out came the coin.. when he presented his £40 bill to the office manager the manager was agast and though it was outrageous for only 2 minuets of work and asked for a breakdown of the bill.. so the engineer wrote down…. thumping the machine £5.00… knowing where to thump it £35.00.. 😆
I never mind paying a professional for a professional job and thankfully a lot of the public are the same.. It’s when people (myself included) pay a professional and get an amature job they object..
As far as manifacture’s and their manuals and updates are conserned I have never minded paying a resonable price for that information because I have always wanted to know the best way to repair their machine. Now when they withhold that information, make it an unviable price and date code it so I can only use it for 12 mths.. all they are doing is making me into an amature.
Fortunately I still have all that experiance which stands me in good stead.
And thank goodness for a site like this where there are other engineers who are in the same predicament and where we can freely give our know how and experance to one another and help us earn a living.. professionaly..
Am I worried.. about joe public.. only the fact that a lot want cheaper and cheaper machines.. which means repairs will become less viable.. with manifacurers, yes.. because they ARE making them cheaper and cheaper, more and more complicated and less and less economically repairable..
One day maybe joe public will get fed up with all this throw away over-complicated rubbish that is palmed off to them and see the light… All a washing machine needs to do is wash the clothes and be reasonably reliable NOt jump through hoops and feed the cat at the same time.. mind you I bet someone would buy one if it did…. 🙂
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