Diary of a Mad Copy Repairman

[fixthecopier]

Re: Diary of a Mad Copy Repairman

Update...

As I continued to go from customer to customer telling them of impending doom, most had still not been made aware of what was happening. Some of those who had a new Lexmark seemed happy, because it was new and shinny. Most were really pissed about it. They commented on how impressed they were with all the features, then i would comment that the machines they were using for the last 10 years had the same features, they were not allowed to use them. BOA, who owns the machines will not make contact with us about buying any, so on Wednesday morning of last week, we said fuck it, and just walked away. I was about half way through the list of customers. Still had a few calling my cell for toner and repairs. One called the shop, and when my daughter told her what was happening, her reply was "Well that's just great! THAT'S JUST FUCKING GREAT!!!" and slammed the phone down.

When I was in the security and intel office for USASOC, one of the guys i have known forever ran up to me and ask, in reference to the Lexmarks, "Please tell me you don't have to write to the hard drives in those!" I laughed and then to make him feel worse, I pointed to the back of the machine where the hard drive resides and said "Six screws and it snaps out. Bet I can have it in my pocket in 2 minutes" He was not happy.

I almost feel sorry for the crew who will have to pick the machines up. I never updated my contact list, because I already knew where everything was. These guys will be trying to find hidden places and access high security areas with names of POC's that nobody has heard of.

Have had a few civilian calls with another tech being in training and some paid shredder calls on base. Still hard to get used to. I have been riding around like i am on vacation. I am not used to not being under pressure, having 10 to 15 open calls on my list. I feel lie I am fucking off all day.

[KapeKopyTek]

Re: Diary of a Mad Copy Repairman

The "Peace Dividend" strikes again! Or at least it sounds a lot like that, based on when I probably got to experience the wonder of BRAC back in the nineties.
Oh, well, if you have the guts to hang in there, it will get better eventually. It always does.

BRAC'd in 2008. Ain't it grand?

[Phrag]

Re: Diary of a Mad Copy Repairman

The only military training base where I am is the smallest compound I've ever seen. Similar sized property as a residential house.

It has a bizhub 161f on Time and Materials. Most of the time the place is empty. My town isn't worth defending I guess.

[fixthecopier]

Re: Diary of a Mad Copy Repairman

The only military training base where I am is the smallest compound I've ever seen. Similar sized property as a residential house.

It has a bizhub 161f on Time and Materials. Most of the time the place is empty. My town isn't worth defending I guess.

Mine is a small city. We picked up 30,000 people with the BRAC realignment. The base has between 70 and 80 thousand personal. There is an unbelievable amount of construction that has been going on for the past 15 years. When you read about the military downsizing to pre WWII levels, that is for old style ground troops that are considered obsolete. The Special Ops side has been steadily expanding. And don't forget roads. Our city looks like it won the road construction lottery.

Problem for a lot of local vendors is that the city of 80.000 workers buys most of it's supplies off the internet.

So I was talking to a tech who works with my competitor who has the other base contract. His contract is maybe over in June. He said he has seen a few Lexmarks show up in his area. If his company looses to Lexmark, they will loose about 2,000 machines. Told my boss we need to got our shit together and become kings of Lexmark. If you can't beat them, join them!

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: Diary of a Mad Copy Repairman

Thanks for all of that detail. It sounds like you are in a fairly small market and this military base makes up a big part of your companies cpc revenue. Just like your previous post said, you need to learn how to like Lexmark machines pronto or else you are going to be out in the cold for at least three years.

[fixthecopier]

Re: Diary of a Mad Copy Repairman

Feeling like I am on vacation has gone to feeling the pressure of not having any work. Yesterday was a beautiful day, sunny and 70 degrees. Only thing messing it up was my manager asking what I was going to do all day, after she gave me 3 deliveries. On the last one, at what was one of my best customers, I picked up a printer call. while working on that, one of my shredder people called with a broken shredder. Then I got a call from a 3rd SFG company, one of the ones with my cell number written on top of the ADF in sharpie. They had a drum code.

Me... "Wow, that contract ended a month ago. You don't have a new machine yet?"
they..."We don't know anything about it"
Me..."I'll come by and explain it" I thought it might be a chance to sell or rent a machine.
When I got there they explained that they were deploying in a week, and needed the copier really bad. It popped into my head that the building I was working on the printer had all the copiers unplugged and in the hall. I went back , snatched the drum and toner out of the machine, went back to the SF guys and brought the machine back to life. I guess I am just getting soft in my old age. Still care about customers I don't have. After all, it's not their fault.

[fixthecopier]

Re: Diary of a Mad Copy Repairman

What a difference 2 months makes.

Things were looking slim. With very little work, manager started making me go home and burn vacation hours. Didn't really mind as spring was in full bloom. Manager was whining about maybe letting someone go. I really wasn't worried about it being me, but would hate for someone else to loose their job because my territory lost the largest contract my company had. The saving factor for me was the fact that I never once trusted the government to be loyal to a contractor. Over the years I have watched as customers I had known for a long time disappear because their contract had been taken over by a new contractor. When my first contract was at an end, and put out to bid, we lost it based on a few dollars per machine. Problem for us was the bidding was not fair. It was down to Konica and Xerox. Problem for us was that Xerox was bidding machines that were not current models, calling them "newly manufactured" or something like that. Contracting refused to look into it, so I found a way to kill it. The Xerox boxes had hard drives. The intel and security did not know it, until I told them. They stopped the install, had to make a big payment to Xerox, put the contract out to bid specifying no hard drive, and machines had to be brand new. All of a sudden the numbers changed in our favor and we won. When that one ended we won the next without any issues.

About the time of contract number 2, I started handing out business cards to everyone, sometimes to people who didn't want them. I have been know to be walking through a building and see someone fighting a printer, or an out of order sign on something and walk in and start handing out my cards. I am not shy. Over the years I got a regular following of customers. That seems to have paid off.

About 5 years ago, one of our base contracts went to our largest competitor. One of my customers was livid about it. Somehow we lost to someone charging CPP at 3.9 cents for bw and almost 9 cents for color. He work hard for over a year to break the contract, and he succeeded. That is where this starts. In the military, any purchase over $3000 has to go through contracting. That is the magic number if you want to sell to them. There is a loophole. The base set up a web site that deals with IT related items, computers, printers ect. You can buy anything off this site and as much as you want, without contracting. The catch is, it is a real bitch to go through the red tape it takes to get listed on the site, most, like us give up after months of trying. Lexmark machines are on the site, and Bob bought 36 of them. It was funny at the time, because it really pissed off the people we lost the contract to. Bob still used me to fix printers, but eventually turned them all in, printing to the MFP's. I had not heard from them in about a year and a half. Then, about a month ago, while sitting in a parking lot, wishing I had something to do, my phone rang. It was Bob. He wanted to talk to me about taking over service on his machines as they fall off the 3 year warranty.

I also started getting calls from a location that is extremely difficult to get into. They are huge and full of HP mfp's. I got a random call from one of the buildings in the compound, and through word of mouth, will be going to my fourth new customer in the place tomorrow. I have also been getting steady calls on shredders and plotters. Tomorrow I will also be doing cleaning and service on 4 of Bobs Lexmarks.

My customers fucking hate their Lexmarks!

We started picking up the old contract about 6 weeks ago. Our driver comes back every day telling us of people really pissed about the whole thing, and talking about how much they hate the new machines. I have already dropped rentals back in the command section and had to fight with several who were trying to refuse to let the old machine go. Some reported fuser errors the first week, major network issues and the cost of toner is killing them.

Unfortunately, my shop let someone go. It was the lady who did the in shop repairs and cash registers. She had fell at home and broke her wrist. They let her go 6 weeks later. She got screwed. They had just sent her to Xerox school a few months ago, as we are now doing some Xerox models. Now I get to go through the training.

In the past 6 days, I have taken on 2 13 year old Konica's and today I went to a 12 year old Toshiba, that looks like may turn into a sale of a used Bizhub. My willingness to work on anything and begging for work over the years may keep me employed.

[blackcat4866]

Re: Diary of a Mad Copy Repairman

What a difference 2 months makes. ...

... My willingness to work on anything and begging for work over the years may keep me employed.

I've always thought of it in the reverse, but it amounts to the same thing: The techs that claim to not be able to work on any machine that they're not trained on, are usually the first to be unemployed. This was especially noticeable during the transition from analog to digital. Those techs that shied away from anything digital were not on the roster for long. =^..^=

[fixthecopier]

Re: Diary of a Mad Copy Repairman

I've always thought of it in the reverse, but it amounts to the same thing: The techs that claim to not be able to work on any machine that they're not trained on, are usually the first to be unemployed. This was especially noticeable during the transition from analog to digital. Those techs that shied away from anything digital were not on the roster for long. =^..^=

It's not as hard as it sounds. When I took the call for a Toshiba studio 200 that was 11 years old, I had never touched a Toshiba. Customer had a "call for servise" message.

So how can I do this, and look like a pro?

I went to this site and looked, and found someone else had the same issue years ago, had ask a question, and then some helpful people told him how to find out what the error was, and possible solutions for it. IT WORKED! I think the site was called copynettech or techcopynet, something like that. I'll see if I can find it again for you guys. Seems like a really cool site.