What got you into the copier game?

[Samanator]

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: What got you into the copier game?

I'll try to make this short. I had just closed down a night club that me and a friend opened up together that was a nightmare and I was living with my girlfriend at the time and was sitting around feeling sorry for myself and not looking for a job. She was on my ass to go look for a job. So, eventually, I decided to go out and pretend to look for a job and I just happened to pass by a Sharp Dealer so I went in. They gave me a written electronics test. A few days later they called me in for an interview and the rest is history. It was all a big mistake. LOL

[blackcat4866]

Re: What got you into the copier game?

Around 1984 I dropped out of college. My four years were up, and I still didn't have an engineering degree. That ... and some famous person had recently admitted that they had not paid back their state of Illinois student loans. So naturally Illinois sent my loans right to collections.

I spent the next four years trying to earn some kind of a living in a place with very high unemployment. Due mostly to perseverence I managed to pay off the student loans.

In 1988 I moved to Flint, MI, and got a series of crappy jobs, not unlike the crappy jobs I left behind. In April of 1989, having never actually stopped looking for jobs, I got offers to interview at three copier dealerships in the same week. There was a Mita dealership in Flint, a Savin dealership in Lansing, and I don't remember the third...? The Mita dealership gave 30 of us the Bennett Mechanical test on a Friday. The majority of us got less than 25% correct. Dan & I were the exception ... got 99% on the test. So I started working on Mitas on a Monday in April of 1989. The rest is history.
=^..^=

[KenB]

[slimslob]

Re: What got you into the copier game?

Out of high school I was accepted at Northrop Institute of Technology, now Northrop University, with an Electronics Engineering major. My objective was to get into computer guidance and tracking system in the new aerospace industry. Fall of 1969 the shipping company I had worked at the previous years that did Christmas shipping for Sunset House to post offices on the east coast was no longer in business so I had to drop out in order to find a job and raise enough money to go back. I almost had enough saved up when I got drafted in February 1970. At a time when Vietnam veterans were having difficulty finding jobs, I got hired on my first interview and started on March 3rd. The company was a full line office equipment dealer Olivetti plus a dealer for Lanier Dictation, SCM typewriter and calculators and the following copier lines in addition to Olivetti, Apeco, SCM, Saxon, Old Town, Sharp and 3M Thermofax. My primary focus was on dictation and copiers. The first plain paper machine was the Royal Bond Copier I with the Apeco name on it. Then came Olympia who distributed Toshiba with the Olympia name and later Minolta with the Olympia name. When Olympia got out of the copier business we became a Gestetner dealer. At that time Gestetner was a majority own subsidiary of Ricoh and later along with Lanier and Savin became a fully owned subsidiary. We alter became a Lanier dealer when Ricoh merged the Lanier and Gestetner divisions under Lanier in North America and Gestetner in Europe.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: What got you into the copier game?

How many have worked on other high tech equipment beyond copiers & PC's?


I once worked for a company that built automated packing machines for Pepsi, Gerber baby food and other companies. Basically the machine was about 60ft. long and the cans/bottles would be transported down the line where a phonematic system would grab the box and open it. The cans would then be placed in the box and glued on both ends for proper sealing. It also applied the labels if they were supposed to have 'em.


These huge machines were controlled by a PLC (programmable logic controller) and the programs were written on site for the different products.

There were tons of wires that had to be run. All were run thru conduit that we had to bend...which was a pain in the ass. Every wire was tagged on both ends.

I eventually left that job because I couldn't deal with the rotating shift work. But it was interesting.

[tech28]

Re: What got you into the copier game?

Fell on my lap, needed job. from unemployment to welfare to tech school to job on copiers, that was 1985. Company went out of business in 88, wrote letters to customers, they gave me a shot, have been self-employed since. Wouldn't trade it for anything. Its been a blessing and an adventure, never the same any giving day. Never same schedule any giving day. Love my job!! Think it takes someone special to deal with what we have to deal with day in day out. Challenging yet very rewarding. God Bless America!! The land of opportunity.

[kingarthur]

Re: What got you into the copier game?

left school at 16, no qualifications, no idea what i wanted to do, had a choice of a butcher or fixing adding machines....didn't fancy being a butcher so thought i'd give the adding machines a go, this also involved cash tills, most things were mechanical, a couple of things had motors, my first day, i was given a load of plugs to put on mains leads, took me 30 minutes to do the first, progressed to electric adding machines & tills, then along came calculators, and pocket calculators which cost a fortune to buy...so i had to repair those too, my maths was brilliant those days, i was the scorer or the darts team lol, i ended up going on a 2 week course to Olympia in Birmingham, learning how to repair circuit boards and solder neatly, then along came dictating machines, i remember a Philips course at the old Croydon Aerodrome, it was 3 days, 2 of those days was correcting the mistakes in the service manuals, then i progressed to shredders, decollators and bursters, but there were few of these, and less calculators, so i was given a choice, start doing copiers..or walk. So i started on Sharp copiers, used to love going to Newton Heath for training courses, the canteen was awesome ,as was the Bower Hotel we used to get put up in.....in the 90s we "merged" with a KM dealer, and Sharp got dropped, so I had to learn those, i was the first colour engineer in our company....whilst doing copiers, we took on franking machines, anytime anything new came along...for some reason, i was "asked" if i'd like to learn about them

so currently i fix KM copiers, and Acco/GBC product, clocking in machines, in fact anything i get asked to, i'll give it ago, as far as i'm concerned, if its f*cked, it doesn't matter if it gets f*cked a bit more, but there's a good chance i can fix it , given enough time

So after 42 years i'm still working for the same company and still quite happy...most days.. it's the customers that make it worthwhile

[larweedad]

Re: What got you into the copier game?

Was working 3 jobs at the time. Sitting at the County Sheriffs office after doing my cleaning, got bored, so I took out my tools and cleaned and fixed the only copier in the office. Next day my wife found an ad for a copier tech in the paper. Got the job and love the costumers ever since.

[rspicer]

Re: What got you into the copier game?

At one of my first copier tech jobs, there was a running joke about how guys got into repairing copiers. They said, during high school they give you a test to see what your skills are, and that determines what job you should get. People who don't really qualify for any job become copier techs.
After spending 6 years at a 2 year college (changed my major a bunch of times + drugs + alcohol), I finished the computer repair program. I tended more toward mechanical things, and somebody suggested that copiers and printers would combine the 2. Now, here I am almost 30 years later.

[srvctec]

Re: What got you into the copier game?

Initially, out of high school, I planned to be a PHAC tech. Went to Vo-Tech school right out of high school for Plumbing, Heating & Air Conditioning, becoming the top in the class at sheet metal work. This all came about mostly because my grandad was a plumber all his life and I knew I wanted to fix stuff, but wasn't sure exactly what but liked working with my hands on mechanical and electrical stuff. Going into PHAC, I had several options to branch out into and since I was best at sheet metal (making all the duct-work), I figured I'd go in that direction since I wasn't crazy about the plumbing option. Looked for a job for a year in sheet metal locally (didn't want to relocate) without any luck. While doing job searching, I worked on the farm and also for another farmer all that summer.

Decided since I liked fixing stuff that I would take Electronics I & II at Vo-Tech in the town I now live in (different town from where the PHAC course was taken) and hoped that would lead to some kind of maintenance or repair type position somewhere. After graduating the 2 year course of Electronics in the spring of 1988, I started at my current job in fall of 1988 and have been here ever since. I don't think there is any other job I could have where I could faithfully say that I learn something new every week, even being at it for over 32 years. That's what I like about it so much and figuring out the problems.

Edit to add:
The whole PHAC thing wasn't a waste of time and money for me because I do all my own work relating to this in my house.

[progoffice]

Re: What got you into the copier game?

In high school, I worked for a copier company during summer breaks that also sold office supplies. My job was mainly sorting and delivering office supplies and toner, but I was also interested in the copiers that were getting worked on in the office. I went off to college at Texas A&M, still working there some summers to make tuition money. I wanted to do graphic design/advertising, so a lot of my classes involved computers and printing. I didn't know until later that these skills were going to help me in this career. After graduating, the post 911 job market wasn't the best so when the owner of the copier company offered me a full-time job I took it. Copiers were becoming more than just copiers at the time, and he wanted some young blood that had some computer knowledge that could figure out the networking side of things. Long story short and 17 years later, I'm still here and I've been able to become a hybrid technician that's not afraid to turn the screwdriver or network an entire office full of equipment. We're a small business, so I also get to sell and not just pick up the pieces of broken promises that salesman leave behind. I still enjoy what I do, but if I didn't work for a really good company I may have veered off entirely to the IT side of things somewhere else - who knows? So no, copier tech would not have been my answer to the "what do you want to do when you grow up" question, but I'm happy to be one now.

[40yearsplus]

Re: What got you into the copier game?

Electronics at Vo Tech 2 years half a day, then work study to a TV company. Then applies in late 70s to a Business Machine Company that sold Calculators and Friden Weighing and Mailing
Systems. Rocky Marciano was the Celebrity for Friden and I got to meet him at one training school. While repairing a mailing system my boss/owner came over to give me advice and his tie got stuck in the gears and he was pulled down. I must have wanted a paycheck so I let the interlock I was holding in the test go before it got ugly. It always was funny. Then off to Minolta from 80-85,
trained on a word processor also it was a Sony but we never sold any. Did dictation and recorders also here, well rounded job. They had Apeco rollomatics and Minolta 101 thermal tanks.
After 5 years to another Minolta dealer to become Service Manager, we had copiers at Langley being deployed also we sold Harris Lanier which was Toshiba. After 3 years here went to a big Canon dealer who wanted to pay a lot. Learned CLC1,CLC2, all Fax units, all other business Canons, Also I had to fix the new consumer machines, Canon PC-20 and PC-25 for a local wholesale club through this dealer. Got so good i was replacing gears on turrets that changed scanner speed for enlarge or reduce. 5 Years then began my own business for a full 15 years ran a Republican Congressmans successful copying campaign and supplied Vice President Chenys advance placement team with Copiers and computers, and was very profitable. a divorce took some wind away so went to work for others again. Sharp dealer for short time, then finally my job I like, as Service Manager, since hired we have place over 30 Konica Minoltas in a year. Several Printers and have a list of those waiting for a copier. Many repairs everyday. Cannot barley remember everything but that answers that !

[Vincent128]

Re: What got you into the copier game?

After H.S. I went into a 3 year program to get my AAS in Electronics.
Always loved to take crap apart and fix/learn/understand how it worked.
My first word was battery and my second was screwdriver - mom can't remember how many more first words there were before "mom" or "dad"...LOL

After getting my AAS, it took a few years of pizza place job before I found one as a copier tech in 1994- been one ever since and have added many many more office equipment machines to the list of crap I work on.

Currently 10+years at a company (now service manager/lead tech) that does copiers/ postage machine / folder-inserter and anything else the sales people can sell (shredders, cutters, softwares...etc)

[rthonpm]

Re: What got you into the copier game?

Worked in a print shop for several years then got laid off. One of my managers who had left several years before went to work for Lanier and referred me to one of his hiring people. They needed an onsite person for one of their Professional Services accounts that would be embedded in with the company's IT. I had PC skills and knew how to clear paper jams, so it was a good fit. The techs for the area showed me how to keep forty machines running through basic PM parts, which they could then drop off to me and then hit other calls. When the contract term was up I went over to the service team as a connectivity guy.

Worked for a dealer or a few years later on, after moving out of state but by then I was doing more IT related things on the side so I branched out and started my own company. IT support with printer and copier service as a way to get through the door.

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