We get in quite a few repairs at work. It’s not our focus by any means but alongside the normal business of the used game market we offer repair services.
For reasons I won’t speculate on here, our most common repair requests are for PlayStation 4 consoles. Normally (as in, about 75% of our repairs are for) HDMI ports, but other issues all the time — “blue light” (oddly similar to the old Xbox 360 Red Ring of Death), Overheating due to fan clogging or outright fan failure, and lastly hard drive / console operating system issues.
That’s just for PS4 consoles — we have others as well, so there is a bit of a queue of consoles needing to be repaired, so there is a bit of a wait time. We also are doing other things besides repairs – the shop needs to operate, so we are far from spending all day every day on repairs. When we are focusing on them, these tasks can sometimes take hours of intricate work and testing to ensure the console is good, and we want to give each console we repair the best effort we can, which also means our focused attention.
Some people don’t seem to be able to even remotely comprehend this concept.
A little while back we had 3 PS4 consoles come in one day – this on top of a few from the previous two days. Needless to say we set them in the repair area in order of when they come in, so we move from repair to repair in order. Of course, some machines may be quicker fixes than others, and if something quick and simple we will usually get to that before a machine that needs to be torn down for a more in depth repair, but even then we still get to the machines in the general order that they come in.
Well, in this case one of the machines which arrived was, if memory serves, just overheating. Nothing major, probably just dust that needed a blow out, at most a fan replacement. Cool. We took it in and put it in the stack in the back.
Now, when people drop off systems we let them know the initial wait is a few days. Depending on the type of repair needed we may get to some systems quicker than others. Others (like HDMI repairs) will just have to wait their turn in line We won’t drag it out needlessly, but there is a waiting period. We also let people know we will contact them as soon as the work is done, or if we need to update them (like, for example, if we need to order a part, which will not only cost but take time to arrive.) This is all pretty normal for any kind of repair work, but I’m explaining it here for the sake of clarity.
Anyway, the aforementioned system was dropped off mid afternoon on day one. Maybe 4-6PM range. I intended to stay late that day, but quite honestly I’ve not been feeling good, so I left at closing time a few hours later, and thus would not be able to work on this repair that night. No big, I’d get to it the next day. That’s well within our time frame for getting back to the customer regarding a relatively simple repair.
Move to day 2. My first task upon coming in is to process online orders that need to go out, and that’s what I did, focusing on them with an intent to get to that console a little while later. Given how the day was going, by that afternoon I figured I’d be in and out of the machine and, presuming it didn’t need a new fan, be done in under 30 minutes!
I never got that chance.
Early on in the day I get a call inquiring about a repair we were working on. The woman gives the name the repair is under and the system type and I go in the back and look. Turns out it’s one of the 3 systems which had come in the previous day. I let her know it’s the next one in the queue to which she, to my surprise seems confused at. I myself was surprised she was calling for a status update less than 24 hours after dropping the console off.
Remember, we will call someone once there’s an update to their console. We tell them when they drop it off that if they haven’t gotten a call from us there hasn’t been a change in status. This should especially be true given this case, where it was less than a day since the unit was dropped off and we said we would get back to them “in a couple of days” as we do with most every customer,
Apparently this didn’t settle well with this individual as she sounded a little angry at finding out it was next in line. I don’t remember how exactly she asked it but she inquired about why we hadn’t gotten to it yet, to which I told her we had been working on ones that had come in before, which is true – we had spent the previous night on 2 PS4’s with some severe problems. This is when the magic moment happened – one of those “what the fuck” kind of moments in a job like mine. The woman, very seriously, asked me “So you guys don’t start on a new one until you finish the last one?
I was surprised by this, as I thought this was one of those things that was just common sense; one of those things your parents teach you when your 7, usually using breakfast cereal as in the classic “you can’t open a new box until you finish the last box” example. Nope, it seems this person didn’t get it at all.
I maintained my composure and politely explained that yes, that was generally the case. Until we reach a stopping point with a console, such as needing to order a part or figure out a new option for repair, we won’t just start on another console. Remember, this was less than 24 hours later — we hadn’t even had time to begin on console repair attempts that day!
I can’t recall how the call ended, but maybe an hour later a man came in wanting the system back. Upon returning it he said in that classic passive-aggressive way that people do that “they had someone else who would do (the repair)” and that was that.
Right. You go ahead and take it to the other person, whomever they may be. If it’s who we all thought it would be, then odds are the system would be coming back to us having been made worse by their “repair attempt” which would cost them even more money and require even more of a wait. Hell, this is all something that probably could have been avoided has they taken better care of the system and the environment it was in, but I digress – I never even got it open to judge the conditions inside.
The point of this story?
Patience. Patience is key. You will live without your PlayStation for a few days. You can’t rush a repair, and while you may expect us to get to your system immediately, that’s generally not going to happen in such work — this isn’t a car you need, it’s a gaming console that you want to play on. If you need it repaired, and you want it done right, you will be patient while we give it the same care and attention we give every console we work on, be it yours or our own personal ones, or the ones we sell in our store. If you want quality work, you will wait the time it takes. If you want it done fast, it might not be done right.
More to come, as always.
Sadly a lot of people think fixing technology is faster than it actually is, for example a lot of people assume cleaning out a console is a 3-step process of open top of console, blow air out, put top of console back on. I once cleaned out an old PS2 console so I can kinda imagine how long it would take to do some of those things especially if you’ve got to replace things too.
Of course there are also just people that are just incredibly impatient, I always have to wonder if that type rushes everything they do and is it always speed > common sense for them.
The funny thing is it really isn’t anything complicated for a PS4 – undo a few screws, open it up, remove the PSU, blow all of the crap out of it, put it back together, and test it for an hour under load. The thing is getting to a stage to work on it. Rarely do we start working on a console that day – most repairs happen the following morning, but that’s the more time and focus intense ones, like HDMI. The later ones are left for me when I come in – ones like this one which I had not had a chance to get to.
Seriously, by 7PM it would have been more than done and they could have picked it up – even if it needed a new fan that could have been done before then, but nope, they had to be this way about it. Whatever, not my problem in the end. Not like I get yelled at for decisions other people wish to make.