Quote:
Originally Posted by FERNSEH
One TV service call today. 47inch LG with a damaged screen, the bairn had thrown something at the screen.DFWB.
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Do you believe that David? More like deliberately smashed to claim on the insurance in order to obtain the latest model with the right 'plug'.
Amazing how many Betamax and Philips 2000 vcr's 'fell down stairs' or Cameron just happened to spill his orange juice into it....
I have been very lucky in life that I have never done a job I have hated. Don't get me wrong I have done some of the hardest manual work, filthy dirty, potentially dangerous, long hours and arduous labour to say nothing that I have done outside the television trade since the age of 12.
Money is not always the reason for hard and tedious work. Of course bills have to be paid and funds have to be set aside for a few simple luxuries of life. My last holiday was in 1961 when I was 13 years old and I certainly don't miss them. I managed some long weekends away towards the end of the shop days, travelling to France on my old Harley Davidson. Often a sense of self satisfaction is worth more than monetary gain, and that can be very small at times!
I used to love to open the shop, never late whatever the conditions and flick the master switch of the workshop. Service is all about just that, SERVICE.
Receivers had to be diagnosed quickly and reliably, a quote in my case given, [nothing annoys a customer more than receiving a higher bill than the so called estimate] Popular manufacturers spares had to be stocked in huge quantities if you wanted to supply the customer with same day service.There were a lot of popular models around in the 70's and 80's.
Repairs had to be executed in a professional manner, safe and reliable. I must admit I had very few problems but of course had one or two returns mainly due to intermittent faults. I never charged for extra work in these cases. They were rare and could easily be absorbed into the high level of turnover.
Then in the late 80's surface mounted components raised their ugly head.
This produced a time consuming procedure with tiny components that were difficult to actually see!
I hated the ICC series chassis produced by Thompson and so it appears did every other engineer in England and France including the Thompson service dept! At least I was not alone.
Most of the British manufacturers owned the Rental Companies. It was in their interest to produce chassis that were very easy to access and service.
Thorn probably produced the most easily repairable chassis, they owned most of the Rental Companies. As rental began to collapse so did the easily accessible chassis. Servicing was becoming much more expensive and difficult task.
You have to add to this the vast reduction in prices of the finished article.
The Toshiba 14" portable without remote control or teletext was over £300 in 1974. By 1998 it was around £150 with T and R and credit was handed out with the free newspaper.
The inevitable end was staring us in the face but many refused to believe this and soldiered on under very difficult conditions. Even the matter of simply parking you van outside the shop to unload repairs resulted in parking tickets and towards the end I paid a few for my customers.
We were now in the position of having to cope with construction of receivers that did not give themselves to straightforward CHEAP service. Spares and service data were becoming difficult to obtain and with the increasing apparent 'wealth' of customers and the massive reduction in cost of the actual equipment, it was obvious that the repair business would collapse.
After all if it were profitable, Sainsburys would have a repair branch on every street corner.
I'm not complaining. I had a very enjoyable working life in the television trade and outlasted many of my friends and even the large multiples.
We go by way of the village Blacksmith and many others that have faded over the last 50 years.
No demand for service, no demand for component suppliers and all the staff and industry that went with it.
Engineering is a dirty word in Britain today.
I used to have many Indian families as customers. I would ask the young lads what they wanted to be when they grew up. 'An Engineer' was always the answer, not Media Studies. Keep smiling, John.