Fellow Techs

[D_L_P]

My fellow techs, gotta love em, i am one of 3 techs here. Well I've had a busy week, calls coming in like crazy, 5 on tuesday, 7 on wensday, 4 on thursday, and 8 just today. I had 2 from the same department come in and I wasn't close to them and they are closed on Monday, so I called my co-workers for help, this is at 1:30. There are only 3 of us and the 1st guy I call has 10 calls himself and can't help. i call the other guy and tell him I am busy (112 calls) and ask if he can pick up the 2 easy calls, both are jammed and they can't find it. He tells me he had to go down south this morning (1hr drive from his house) to do some calls and he can't help me today. Well, I check up on him and he has a total of 3 calls. He is dispatched to a system generated courtesy call 10 min from the calls I was asking him to take, and the other 2 were for the location he was supposedly at this morning. WTF!!! So did he even GO to work today? Or did he just go home at noon and decide he didn't have to do any more calls since 2 hours of driving was such a hardship. What an @$$#%!&! This is not the 1st time he has done this either. As a rule, I'm not one to make waves and understand going to Dr appt's or working through lunch to go home a little early is part of the job. But when my boss called me at the end of the day and asked why I didn't call for help, I just had to tell him.

[Jules Winfield]

You were right to tell him. If just one tech is screwing around, not carrying their call load, then not only does it make more work for the rest of you, but it makes all of you look bad. I would totally remember that next time that dude tries to call for help. "Uh, yeah... I'm kinda busy reorganizing my car stock, so... yeah, sorry".

[unisys12]

Yeah, I hate that crap too! Most of the time though, it works out were our service manager will call and ask that we take care of call that he had picked up himself. Only to find out, either the same day or up to a week later, that he had went shopping at Lowe's or had to get something for his girl friend. Oh! And it kills me when we meet up for lunch and he gives me a call, only to talk to the owner later to find that he gave to him because he wanted him to go to the account.

It's nice to get done with calls, get back to the shop, research stuff and just take a breath. And I'm not against helping others, but that crap totally tee's me off!

Recently though, his biggest thing has been taking someone with him, the whole freaking day, just because he has to go do a PM. His argument is that two people can do a 3 hr PM in half the time. And the owners fall for it most every time. Now there's 4 of us, so when this happens, all it really does is take another guy off the street and the other two have to pick up the slack. The 3 hr PM that he refers to can actually be done by one tech in 1hr 45min, if they hump it.

It's a real Charlie Brown moment when that crap happens. AAARRGGGHH!!

[Stirton.M]

The black and white department in my shop does things differently...they get their calls through dispatch...this can provide some issues, since dispatch isn't really familiar with the city, so they take the excuses at face value.

In the colour department, all dispatches go to the "leutenant" as I call him jokingly. Basically, one of us unfortunate SOBs with enough time in the company will get this job. I almost had to do it, but one of my buds stepped in and volunteered. The fool. It's stressful keeping track of whats come in, whats being done and what is completed and who's doing this or that. We are doing well with this arrangement. We maintain an under 4 hour response to all calls, and the leutenant knows by experience what the problem is, how long it takes to resolve it and where the call is located at. I call him for any service calls, he emails me a couple calls in blackberry and I do the calls. I email my workorders to dispatch and call him for new calls. If I am MIA for too long, he will call me to find out what is happening, which is rare for me.

For the most part this works.

We only have one problem child, the worlds most useless tech in my opinion (constantly following up on his work to repair his handywork or simply fix the machine because he was too stupid to figure it out or RTFM), who often is late for work, or takes 2 hours to replace an image unit, or runs out of gas or...damn list is too long to lament...suffice to say he is mostly useless to us. Unfortunate since management doesn't want to let him go because of a hiring freeze and they fear our workload might become too much. The way I see it, his presence is a detriment and is actually causing more work for us, in spite of his presence.

[fixthecopier]

It has always amazed me how bad techs can stay in the business. We had one that was bad and refused to try to get better. He had never done this work before, but was hired because he had a degree in electronics from a local collage. He was sent to Lanier color printer school, blew two printers in class, and they ask he never be sent back. They put him in my area, working on 3 different class of machine. He learned through repetition, but still sucked. Nobody cared because they did not do his cleanup work. When his contract was lost to a low bidder, they tried to use him like any other tech, doing any calls that came in, but he could not wing it with different equipment. The service manager's phone was ringing off the hook with dumb questions, then he started laying out and they laid him off. We still have one that is borderline. Drove three hours to a call and then realized he left the parts at the shop. Just yesterday he drove to a customer of his an hour away because the machine had red streaks in it. All he took was a magenta unit, got there and found he needed the yellow and a chip for the cyan. When he called the shop to ask if someone could meet him half way with the stuff, the manager lost it. She told him to come back and go home and gave me the call. I mean really, what are the odds of a color machine needing more than one color at the same time? About 85%? He is the kind of guy that will ask you a question and then argue with you about your answer. My shop hired a guy one time that had been in the business 11 years. He was working on a printer and ask me where the black lines were coming from.Are you kidding me??? You don't see them on that cartridge you are holding? The guy was not quite what you would expect from someone with 11 years in the business. On the Dilbert cartoon show, they did an episode about "the knack". "The knack" was the ability to be a good engineer, you either had it or you didn't. I think the same thing applies with being a tech. I got in the biz with no experence, and taught myself. I worked my first 300 machine contract for almost 2 years before they sent me to my first school. Some people can get a armload of certs and still not know shit.

[KEVIN900]

I'm lucky. My company has an old time employee whose territory overlaps mine. He's married to the ugly sister-in-law of the owner of the company. 25 years experience; and cannot do anything right. I spend my days redoing the calls he did the day before. Does not replace ANY parts. Leaves the copiers covered in greasy black fingerprints. Awful body odor, and heavy breathing due to obesity. Even the tools he uses. He rounds out every screw he touches, and puts them back in the machine tightly. Utter Incompetence. He's gotten worse as time goes on. No certifications. Actually flunked out of the 3 school he was sent to. Hooray, he, of course survived all the rounds of lay-offs we've had. We let fine techs go, and he is still around, trashing copiers, and riling up our customers. I just wish he'd have a stroke already, and retire.

[Stirton.M]

I'm lucky. My company has an old time employee whose territory overlaps mine. He's married to the ugly sister-in-law of the owner of the company. 25 years experience; and cannot do anything right. I spend my days redoing the calls he did the day before. Does not replace ANY parts. Leaves the copiers covered in greasy black fingerprints. Awful body odor, and heavy breathing due to obesity. Even the tools he uses. He rounds out every screw he touches, and puts them back in the machine tightly. Utter Incompetence. He's gotten worse as time goes on. No certifications. Actually flunked out of the 3 school he was sent to. Hooray, he, of course survived all the rounds of lay-offs we've had. We let fine techs go, and he is still around, trashing copiers, and riling up our customers. I just wish he'd have a stroke already, and retire.

Ummm....if you ever have a customer do a call back and they complain to you about the other guy, give em your boss's number so they can complain directly to him about the loser, stating things like "I do not want that vile pig in my office ever again" or words to that effect, along with threats about dumping the hardware and going with the competitors. Usually this works. But of course, this depends on how your boss likes keeping customers.

[scallanjoe@yahoo.com]

bad tech worse serv mrg/ even worse owner o last 2 are same

Ummm....if you ever have a customer do a call back and they complain to you about the other guy, give em your boss's number so they can complain directly to him about the loser, stating things like "I do not want that vile pig in my office ever again" or words to that effect, along with threats about dumping the hardware and going with the competitors. Usually this works. But of course, this depends on how your boss likes keeping customers.

i worked for a small company 2 copier / printer tech's 1 parts man/ deliverman 1 it guy / catch extra calls
owner is a salesman tried to help with calls and coustomer call office and dose not want
that tech back ....what you going to do----

[D_L_P]

Just have to pass this jem along. A customer of ours ran out of toner for their little Canon NP7130 and our salesman brought them some and put it in. The next day the copies looked terrible. My fellow tech went out and took one look and ordered a drum. Went back out and replaced the drum, still looked terrible. Ordered a new developer unit. Went back out and put in new developer, still looked terrible. For those who don't know the NP7130 the toner bottle slides right into the unit, there is no hopper. New unit comes empty so of course he transferred old bottle.

At this point he brings the unit into the shop and suspects the toner might be the issue so he vacuums out the developer and adds a new bottle. Still look terrible. Today, I see the copier sitting there and ask about it. He shows me the copy and it is a negative image (not bad otherwise) and my 1st thoughts were wrong toner. He told me everything he has done up to this point and I was doubtful 2 developers and 2 bottles were bad, unless maybe one was OEM and the other Katun, but he remembered seeing Canon OEM on both boxes. I have to admit I was a bit stumped. I thought maybe the bias tab was broken or developer wasn't in there right (somewhat common on those). But something about the toner being in the edge erase nagged at me, then it hit me, duh that can only be wrong toner! We opened it up and I saw a blue handle instead of brown and the bottle was stuck in there pretty good. No wonder, the bottles for an NP7130 and IR1370 are the same size but keyed different. It then occurred to me we haven't had a bottle of 7130 or any NP(analog) toner in the office for a few years and what little we do have is just a couple IR(digital)models.
Not only did a TECH add the wrong toner but he did it TWICE! Once when he transferred the bottle from one developer unit to the other and then again after vacuuming it all out went and got the wrong toner himself. I expect sales to do that and we all make mistakes, but I did get a good laugh about it!