New job, new woes.

[mix-hyenataur.livejournal.com]

Yesterday was my first day at a 'solid' job/contract. It's not much, but I need the money. I feel like it's a sweatshop. I have yet still to iron out the contract details and sign anything. Basic 1099, $10/hr trial run then he 'hopefully' ups it. (I'll make sure to point that out in the contract. Hope runs far but gets you nowhere in life.)

He makes it a point to clean out a laptop that had minimal dust in it. I usually use an air-compressor (if one is available) or a CO2 cartridge (because 'canned air' freezes and leaves a residue). He told me no, that they 'have water in them'. His solution? he blew into it a few times. (Mouths don't contain water, I forgot. Doh!)

Before he did this though, he had me disassemble the laptop, and take out the heatsink just so he could quickly blow on that too. A waste of time. Dells are impossible to get to the fan. I wasted 20 mins.

So, he wanted to put the heatsink back on, and brought me a full tube of silver compound.

He used the WHOLE tube.

I... I tried to stop him, but he just ignored me.

When I told him a few months ago I SAW a motherboard FRY (it left a HOLE though the motherboard!) he retorted with "It can't do that, where did you hear that from?"

I then took it too the back and it looked like a mini sculpture, about an inch high. I did my best to 'scoop' it off, making my hands silver.

He's scaring the shit out of me. Someone will buy a laptop from him, leave it on overnight, and their house will prolly catch fire. I'd like to find a few good pictures, lectures, horror stories, and tutorials to shove in his face, but google's being a bitch. Someone help me out?

Comments

[mix-hyenataur.livejournal.com]

I repaired a laptop which had a failing control panel and it looked like someone looked inside the laptop, since the inner chassis was missing screws.

When he looked at it, it wouldn't turn on. He blamed me.

Thing is, he never asks the customer what is wrong and writes up a ticket. He hands them to me to just figure out.

If he spent a little time asking people, it would help me figure out how to fix it faster and it would cut down on people trying to scam him with "It was turning on before I came here" lies.

Run Away

[melstav]

'nuff said.

[laptop-mechanic.livejournal.com]

Yikes. There are no words to describe how ignorant this guy is.

[canray.livejournal.com]

It is the Anti-Tech! Here to bring about the death, destruction, and horror to the entire world by allowing stupidity to reign SUPREME!!!

...

What, it's already happened? Oh, well then. Um... I'll be over here... Yeah. Just leave me in this padded room where the stupid won't get me.

[tregare.livejournal.com]

I usually use an air compressor with an air dryer/moisture separator unit.

[mix-hyenataur.livejournal.com]

I think compressors contain way less water and spit than mouths, and are more efficent.

[tregare.livejournal.com]

yup, they do (unless you are in a high humidity area) but i still use a dryer/seperator to be sure i don't get moisture where I shouldn't :) and as long as you are using the food grade co2, or a co2 tank or cartridges that are made for paintball or bb-guns you should be fine, the paintball tanks generally have lubricant added before fill and the cartridges ahve lubricants in them (why you can't use them for food purposes)

[kallell.livejournal.com]

being an avid paintball player, i recommend against any co2 for this use as well

[gholam.livejournal.com]

Take pictures. Post them to thedailywtf.com. Laugh.

[jjjiii]

It's really too bad they don't have a tipjar for dailywtf. Then people could really "get a nickel for everytime..."

[argonel.livejournal.com]

Look for work. When you have a better job, run away as fast as you can. The moron will never learn and will always blame you for their failings.

[lolotehe]

$10/hr? Are we just being treated like crap now or did they let a bunch on non-geeks in? Are we looking at a support "Eternal September"?

[catsidhe.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, at what point did we start being treated like non-crap? Did I miss that memo?

[catsidhe.livejournal.com]

Congratulations, that's wonderful, I hate you, wanna swap?

[ravenofdreams.livejournal.com]

Link him to any of the pages talking about the number of Macbook Pro's that had problems from incorrect application of heatpaste. (Why yes, I am still bitter that I had to void the warranty on a week-old laptop to keep it from lighting shit on fire....)
But I know those are googlable.

[manuka.livejournal.com]

He is correct about the water in the air compressor. Also potential for small debris. The ideal solution is a large bottle of dry nitrogen. (But yeah, blowing on it with his mouth was duh-umb. Canned "air" itself doesn't leave reside, but the liquid freon is also a solvent and displaces other gunk to form that residue.

As a side note, I can get to the heatsink on my latitude 820 in about 90 seconds. I have to because of the lousy airflow design that requires disassembly to clean debris off the fins.

[jecook]

Yeah. Run away screaming.

I never put up with that crap at a higher salery then what you are getting.