Lazy technicians

[techwurk]

Re: Lazy technicians

The copier tech description has changed over the years from electro/mechanic to electro/mechanic/computer tech. The computer tech part of this is what creates laziness as well as the individual. Make that lazy technician fix a Sharp SF-741 with broken drum hubs with only a manual and no other help, that will straighten them out, haha!

[copyman]

Re: Lazy technicians

Lol. Oh boy I remember those SF-741 master clamp jams. And unfortunately thinking back I remember taking a 741 drum out a few times. Showing my age to say I went to factory school for the 741. Never forgot a factory Jap rep addressed the class saying the 741 was going to be the copier future ha-ha! For those of you who don't know Sharp tried a few low volume models that used masters. Master only lasted "600" pages then had to be changed, by the end user! Sharp ended up designing a machine that the master lasted 8k pages and changed by the tech, the sharp 750, 755, 756. The 755 & 756 were decent machines. I made a lot of $$$ on installing PM kits everything 8K !!!

[Bucky]

Re: Lazy technicians

There was a time back in the day, when a technician could go to a service call, look at the machine and know for sure what was wrong with it. He could order a part, install it, and leave the office knowing for sure that he fixed the problem. Not any longer! Now days you can't see what is going on inside of the machines.

I can remember opening the front doors, installing cheaters on the interlocks, pulling up a chair in front on the machine, and watching the paper as it makes its way the four feet from one end of the machine to the other. On the way, it would get lifted by motors, fluffed by air pressure, sucked by vacuum, registered by fingers, electrocuted by a corona, squeezed by a 18 inch long heat and pressure roller that was almost 4 inches in diameter, made of steel and coated with Teflon. Then moved up the "C" transport, (yes, there was also an "A" and a "B" transport as well), where it was again shocked by extremely high voltage before it could fall in the paper tray hanging on the left side. And all of this machinery was powered by no less that 220 VAC and packed in a container weighing 1,500 pounds. After all of that, that 81/2 X 11 inch paper (it wouldn't do any other size) would normally come out of the left side with toner on it that had a strange resemblance of something a customer could actually read. That toner was arrange on a drum coated with selenium by a 50 pound developer housing filled with 25 pounds of micro steel shot ball bearings that cascaded onto the drum by gravity. The drum was a foot in diameter, had two large flanges on each end and was held on by a "Lug nut" that looked more like it belonged on an 18 wheeler truck instead of a copy machine.

The worst part was, that on occasion the paper would catch fire. Which in turn would cause the machine to discharge its very own internal Co2 fire extinguisher. And that was after they started putting the extinguishers inside of the machines instead of just hanging them on the frame under the machine. The customer was required to activate that extinguisher when they saw smoke coming from the back fan. The problem was, that when the smoke filled the room, all of the people exited the room in a panic, and it was up to the Fire Department to pry open the copier's doors, cause nobody could find the special key (CAT5) to unlock the doors.

Oh how I miss the good old days!

[prismtech]

Re: Lazy technicians

Companies are putting more emphasis on IT experience than real tech experience. I find most IT people just google everything and they end up here. The days of old time techs is coming to an end. Old fashion troubleshooting is winding down.........

This!!

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[gneebore]

Re: Lazy technicians

Companies are putting more emphasis on IT experience than real tech experience. I find most IT people just google everything and they end up here. The days of old time techs is coming to an end. Old fashion troubleshooting is winding down.........

Customers are also requiring more IT from techs than just technical expertise. Quite a few times I was asked to troubleshoot a scanning to network or e-mail problem. All I could do was go get my mini network, laptop, router, and cables and set the ip address to match the printer and disconnect from their network. Then print scan and do everything with my laptop. If it worked (only had one network card fail this test procedure) then I unplugged my equipment and plugged theirs back in and tried it again with their computer operator doing the test prints and scans. I usually would insist that someone from their computer office if onsite be there when I did this. Then I would show them my settings, print them out and let them go back and troubleshoot their network.

[Bucky]

Re: Lazy technicians

Customers are also requiring more IT from techs than just technical expertise. Quite a few times I was asked to troubleshoot a scanning to network or e-mail problem. All I could do was go get my mini network, laptop, router, and cables and set the ip address to match the printer and disconnect from their network. Then print scan and do everything with my laptop. If it worked (only had one network card fail this test procedure) then I unplugged my equipment and plugged theirs back in and tried it again with their computer operator doing the test prints and scans. I usually would insist that someone from their computer office if onsite be there when I did this. Then I would show them my settings, print them out and let them go back and troubleshoot their network.

Our company has a fully trained I.T. person assigned to each branch. We have four branches. They will do the setup and network install for free as part of the initial sales agreement. After that, we are supposed to charge $145.00 per hour to fix network issues. We make it clear that we are not a network repair company, and network issues are not covered under the copier service agreement. I feel that if we are going to charge a customer for such issues, that they should get someone who is trained. I am not Network trained. So I generally will send someone else. I understand Networking, and can do minor troubleshooting. I have to do something like that over and over again before I can really get good at it. Last December we installed 87 new machines at one account. All had to be setup with new drivers and with Scan to Email. The drivers were not a problem, but I could not remember all the settings I needed for Scan to Email. Our man gave them to me. After that, I completed all of them with no problem. I have not done one since, and for the life of me I can not remember what all I need to set them up again.

[gneebore]

Re: Lazy technicians

Our company has a fully trained I.T. person assigned to each branch. We have four branches. They will do the setup and network install for free as part of the initial sales agreement. After that, we are supposed to charge $145.00 per hour to fix network issues. We make it clear that we are not a network repair company, and network issues are not covered under the copier service agreement. I feel that if we are going to charge a customer for such issues, that they should get someone who is trained. I am not Network trained. So I generally will send someone else. I understand Networking, and can do minor troubleshooting. I have to do something like that over and over again before I can really get good at it. Last December we installed 87 new machines at one account. All had to be setup with new drivers and with Scan to Email. The drivers were not a problem, but I could not remember all the settings I needed for Scan to Email. Our man gave them to me. After that, I completed all of them with no problem. I have not done one since, and for the life of me I can not remember what all I need to set them up again.

I originally started with electronic typewriters as printers. Parallel port hookup and no networking. My personal favorite way to set the "printer" up was to hand the unopened drivers floppy disks to the user and let them do the install with me guiding them. Yes this was far enough back in stone aged computer time that we actually had to set up printers with dos 3.3 and even set up some software with specialty drivers. Think Word Perfect 4.0. So it was relatively easy and safe to handle installs that way. Kind of like, "Here I can show you how to do it so you don't have to wait until I can come back if you need to do this with a new pc"

Then we started with digital copiers and in the case of a small two to four machine network no real problems. Part of the training was actually how to network the copiers. But eventually we started getting sales and installs in large companies. That was when my boss added a clause to "We do not repair or diagnose network problems. That is the responsibility of the customer" to the service contract. Had to add that because customers were always claiming making sure it worked on their network was our job and part of the servicing of the equipment. Got to be real fun sometimes when I'd go on a call and have to explain "If it works with those four and not those two then you have a problems with the network. And we do not fix network problems"

[Bucky]

Re: Lazy technicians

I originally started with electronic typewriters as printers. Parallel port hookup and no networking. My personal favorite way to set the "printer" up was to hand the unopened drivers floppy disks to the user and let them do the install with me guiding them. Yes this was far enough back in stone aged computer time that we actually had to set up printers with dos 3.3 and even set up some software with specialty drivers. Think Word Perfect 4.0. So it was relatively easy and safe to handle installs that way. Kind of like, "Here I can show you how to do it so you don't have to wait until I can come back if you need to do this with a new pc"

Then we started with digital copiers and in the case of a small two to four machine network no real problems. Part of the training was actually how to network the copiers. But eventually we started getting sales and installs in large companies. That was when my boss added a clause to "We do not repair or diagnose network problems. That is the responsibility of the customer" to the service contract. Had to add that because customers were always claiming making sure it worked on their network was our job and part of the servicing of the equipment. Got to be real fun sometimes when I'd go on a call and have to explain "If it works with those four and not those two then you have a problems with the network. And we do not fix network problems"

Boy does all that sound familiar. By the way guys, our company in Bakersfield California is looking to hire a new tech. We've needed one for a long time to help out the three that are there now. Our owner finally gave the word to start looking for someone. As usual, Network training is a plus, but not a requirement. We service Ricoh brand. Send me a private message if you are interested.

[Lance15]

Re: Lazy technicians

We have three techs (including me). I'm the only one who can troubleshoot and repair almost anything (desktops, laptops, printers). The other two....well.....let's just leave it there...................

[Tricky]

Re: Lazy technicians

We have three techs (including me). I'm the only one who can troubleshoot and repair almost anything (desktops, laptops, printers). The other two....well.....let's just leave it there...................

I know this thread is three years old but I don't give a damn, I have had one of those days where the lazy ones reveal themselves, and it pisses me off. None of us are expected to work like in a Chinese sweatshop but some just don't want to take on something even slightly challenging.

[bsm2]

Re: Lazy technicians

I know this thread is three years old but I don't give a damn, I have had one of those days where the lazy ones reveal themselves, and it pisses me off. None of us are expected to work like in a Chinese sweatshop but some just don't want to take on something even slightly challenging.

Give them the information and skynet still can't read

[Blizzoo]

Re: Lazy technicians

Like someone here said once: Politics doesn't make any friends.

[Phil B.]

Re: Lazy technicians

Give them the information and skynet still can't read

WTF?
can you let your animosity drop for one FUCKING MOMENT?
I'm sorry he has put you to shame in other rant n rave threads but YOU always refuse to read anything that doesn't agree with your views.
Stop harassing users here fuckwad.

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[bsm2]

Re: Lazy technicians

WTF?
can you let your animosity drop for one FUCKING MOMENT?
I'm sorry he has put you to shame in other rant n rave threads but YOU always refuse to read anything that doesn't agree with your views.
Stop harassing users here fuckwad.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

Hilarious
Stop stalking me Dude

[srvctec]

Re: Lazy technicians

I know this thread is three years old but I don't give a damn, I have had one of those days where the lazy ones reveal themselves, and it pisses me off. None of us are expected to work like in a Chinese sweatshop but some just don't want to take on something even slightly challenging.

I know what you mean! I'd just be happy if they'd clean the damn machine (THOROUGHLY, not half assed!) so when I go back in a day or two for something else they were too lazy to do, at least I wouldn't also have to do that.