Company taking on Xerox

[slimslob]

Wonder if he still feels that way.

Ricoh had a bit of staff a culling after a certain merger took place I was informed by a rather bitter ex-Ricoh support employee.
(Lunch breaks on training coarse's, the perfect outlet to tell everyone how much you hated your last job lol).

As far as I know she is still a lead tech in the London area though with more family activities, she doesn't have as much time to post here anymore. She used to refer to here and Facebook as her social life. I think it was after Paul died that she started posting less. She Gwaddle and I were Facebook friends with Paul. She still posts on Facebook regularly.

[copyman]

Speaking of working on machines not familiar with, when I first started my company I had to work on anything & everything to survive. Would head on out to a call armed with just my tool case and Intravia manuals. A few machines I had never seen before I didn't even know how to turn on, after about 5-10 mins looking for pwr switch I would have no choice but to use this old trick: if call was for jamming I would call the secretary over and ask her to show me how it was jamming, how she was loading paper, etc "just to make sure she wasn't doing something wrong" then I would step back to watch and she would turn machine on to show me what was going on. At least I got the machine powered up! Intravia books were great and made me a lot of money back in the day but didn't tell you how to turn those few oddball machines on.

My relationship with Xerox has never been good. One of those love - hate relationships, mostly hate. Most experience was many years ago. All the way back to the 1025, 1018, etc. I put them right with my feelings towards Toshiba. Hate them both. Mind you I don't use the word hate much......

[fixthecopier]

I've heard of this.

Can you give me a little synopsis of this?

Either I connect the laptop to the Xerox and it diagnoses & fixes the problem like a super-intelligent robot....or it's just a big pain in the a$$.

The laptop will have all the manuals, and it connects to Xerox and gets updates on this and that. Best to have an old laptop and make it just for Xerox rather than try to put it on your good one. Takes a lot of space.

[Cipher]

As far as I know she is still a lead tech in the London area though with more family activities, she doesn't have as much time to post here anymore. She used to refer to here and Facebook as her social life. I think it was after Paul died that she started posting less. She Gwaddle and I were Facebook friends with Paul. She still posts on Facebook regularly.

Ah well I think we need more female techs in what is a very male oriented industry.

BTW just came across this which falls inline with what I've been hearing of late: https://asia.nikkei.com/Japan-Update...pan-and-Europe

Back to Xerox I'm told it's a pretty locked down system for the offline documentation where you need authenticate online to maintain access to it.via their client software.

Is that correct?

[SalesServiceGuy]

The laptop will have all the manuals, and it connects to Xerox and gets updates on this and that. Best to have an old laptop and make it just for Xerox rather than try to put it on your good one. Takes a lot of space.

In 2018, I do not know how you can consider yourself to be a Professional service technician, if you do not carry a laptop or tablet around with you. Other than a phillips screwdriver, it has to be the second most important tool that you carry.

Yes, Smart phones are powerful and you can load them with notes and service codes to yourself but the screen is just not big enough.

Plus you need a laptop to carry around all of the multiple firmwares and print drivers you need to do your job for quick access.

[fixthecopier]

In 2018, I do not know how you can consider yourself to be a Professional service technician, if you do not carry a laptop or tablet around with you. Other than a phillips screwdriver, it has to be the second most important tool that you carry.

Yes, Smart phones are powerful and you can load them with notes and service codes to yourself but the screen is just not big enough.

Plus you need a laptop to carry around all of the multiple firmwares and print drivers you need to do your job for quick access.

I worked a 330 machine Konica contract for 16 years for army Special Ops. No laptops or cellphones allowed anywhere. I still have many Ops customers that I cannot bring those things with me. I get through it and everything gets fixed. My comment about Xerox is that you need an extra laptop just for the Xerox shit.

[copyman]

Maybe laptops needed for xerox but not for konica minolta. I maybe used my laptop 2 times last year, only to take customers network out of the mix to test printing. Have all the manuals and F/W on a few thumb drives in my tool "case" (yes you heard right I still use a platt hard case) showing my age

[SalesServiceGuy]

I worked a 330 machine Konica contract for 16 years for army Special Ops. No laptops or cellphones allowed anywhere. I still have many Ops customers that I cannot bring those things with me. I get through it and everything gets fixed. My comment about Xerox is that you need an extra laptop just for the Xerox shit.

That large account sounds "locked down" to a few select models in a high security environment.

I am thinking more of the tech who has to make 5-10 calls a day on many different SMB accounts all day long, where every call is different. I am not saying you need a laptop for each call, you have tech experience for that, but probably one or more times per day something unfamiliar will popup or there will be a service code that you cannot remember.

Besides not all techs are experienced and struggle to get through their day.

Or you can be the kind of tech who either calls his co-workers all the time for help or complains that he cannot get through to tech support in a timely way because he does not know the codes to get the job done.

[copyman]

What about taking a thumb drive out of your tool case and plugging into one of the customers workstations to look up a code or disassembly instructions? I know that isn't possible in some big companies and other circumstances but that's when I will go to truck and fire up my laptop. But because most of my accounts are small and after 20-30 years many are like friends, I can jump right on one of their computers. I guess it helps I'm basically only working on one OEM. Sure it makes it much easier then working on several different brands.

On the other hand I use my office computer a lot to look up issues on knowledge base, bulletins, F/W, etc. Fortunately with Kon/Min I can get the customer up and running then return after researching, ordering parts, etc. back at the office.

[fixthecopier]

That large account sounds "locked down" to a few select models in a high security environment.

I am thinking more of the tech who has to make 5-10 calls a day on many different SMB accounts all day long, where every call is different. I am not saying you need a laptop for each call, you have tech experience for that, but probably one or more times per day something unfamiliar will popup or there will be a service code that you cannot remember.

Besides not all techs are experienced and struggle to get through their day.

Or you can be the kind of tech who either calls his co-workers all the time for help or complains that he cannot get through to tech support in a timely way because he does not know the codes to get the job done.

If I had to load firmware and the IT section would not do it, I would have to drop off the thumb drive a day in advance to have it scanned before I could plug it in. Same thing with changing hard drives in HP machines now. I have to submit them in advance before I can install.