Musings on Days Gone By.

Good thing you found out about him fast.  Sometimes those problematic types ripen slowly as they can see what they can get away with.

At one point I was contracting for 2 different companies at the same time.
 The 2nd company, I told them I wanted ALL the audio work. Well the guy would not order parts or service manuals I needed, and blame me for the delay when the customers started griping
.
I got everything torn down and covers, screws, etc missing. I started to smell dead fish at this point.

 I delivered back a number of units to literally see him sucking all the gravy audio repairs, and giving me nothing but the "dogs", mostly Fisher with the STK output nightmares. 
 I collected my money & dumped him. I can't print what I truly think of him here, either.

It literally cost more to drive to his shop to return & pickup units & parts, than I made in repairs, since it was all "dog" repairs. About a 70 mile round trip too. At that time it cost right at $1.00/ mile for fuel. Lost my shirt on that deal with gas at $5.00/gal. in my van.
Live & learn.

About 20 years ago when I was between jobs, I applied with the largest audio service center in the area.  It wasn't very big.   The manager said I could come in and report the next morning and I could work there for a day or two and see if I was right for them and they were right for me.  They paid on commission.  I could get work done, but not enough to earn a reasonable living.  I remember the last unit I worked on, a low end receiver with wired speakers.  the speakers were still "connected".  It had the spring loaded connectors you put the wire into while pressed, then release to hold it.  The unstripped wires were in the connectors. He paid me for 2 days work plus the poopy commision.  I moved on.

When I first started servicing electronics it was in the mid '60's.

 The parts houses actually stocked commonly needed parts- and others in depth.
 If they didn't have it, they would happily order it from the mfg., and it might take a week or two to arrive. Customers understood this, and patiently waited (most of the time).

Move forward to the late 2000's- Most of the parts houses had closed. The "throwaway" sets had arrived. At least in their minds, anyway.
 I could often fix their set for well under the replacement cost. Of course, their kids wanted the latest and greatest- nevermind that their parents most often couldn't figure out how to program the sets and remotes up. They were happy with the sets they understood how to work.

It became the younger generation wanted the set repaired 2 days before it broke. Well, I am exaggerating, but not by much.
 Their kids couldn't live without the "TV babysitter" and their video games. (What- no one reads or plays outside?).

  I always did my best to have the sets repaired in 2 days, unless I had to order parts. I would tell the customer that they had an ETA of such and such a date, and their set would get worked on as soon as the parts came in. This was true except for the antique radios, which most folks understood that parts were quite hard to find, like transformers, knobs, etc. 
  Most of the folks were totally cool with any delay. The fact that I would tell them I could discount the time on their equipment if they didn't need to have it back immediately, and would be patient. Boy! What a pleasure to work with those folks.

Now one day I was working on a TV set, maybe 10 years or so old and the Flyback/IHVT was fried. I called the lady and told her I could get the part, but it was going to take a week to arrive. Well, she just had a fit! A WEEK!!! Yes, I told her, and that was mostly shipping time from the East Coast, unless she wanted to pay for overnite express shipping.
 Well, that was another outburst from "Her Highness" about why didn't we have the part in stock, and we SHOULD have it, and we obviously had no idea what we were doing, because we didn't have the part for her "off brand" set in stock.
 I asked her if she thought we should stock every part for every set ever made. She replied "YES YOU SHOULD".
  I explained that it would cost many millions of dollars to do that, and then our overhead would be so high we couldn't stay in business. Also most of the set specific parts would never be used. 
 She came in & got her set "To take it to another shop that would have the parts in stock and could fix it immediately". Give her a Darwin Award.
 That sort of customer- and the ones who always wanted a free estimate- were the (fortunately) minority.

At one time, I would give free estimates, but found out that the people would literally bring in sets from the dumps and found ones in the woods to see what they would cost to fix.
 99.9% of the time they would not pay to have it fixed, but left it  "So you can have the parts to fix another set".
 I would NEVER, EVER, put a used part in a customers set, unless it was the only way to get a NLA part to fix it. You couldn't warranty a used part, as you had no idea of what abuse it had gone through.

Now, it has become a business to sell allegedly "Refurbished" and "Tested"circuit boards on the internet.

 I dealt with one company who claimed that "Every module they sold was tested before it was shipped, and most were out of "New , freight damaged sets". Well, way cool. New boards, NLA, and at a killer good price.  Little did I suspect...
 I got many used ones in that were NLA from that company. At first, they were as advertised, but with a year or so, they came in covered with dust and dirt, and towards the end of using that company, the majority were D.O.A. I mean, if they had actually been looked at, they could have see the filter capacitors were all bulged out on top.

  One other company, I sent back 6 DOA in a row supposedly tested and repaired power supplies. Finally I took the 3 hours and fixed the original one. Couldn't charge the customer for all that wasted time, for a $25.00 board. They also refused to refund for the freight, cost of the board, and time lost trying to see if their boards worked or not. "But we have never had anyone else complain the boards were bad." (Yeah, checks in the mail, too).
 When you can see capacitor bulged out the top, electrolyte oozing out of a board, the board covered with dirt, lint, hair and who knows what crud............Never a complaint? Give me a break....

Ah the joys of servicing consumer equipment in a small town...
  I am so not missing that sort of thing any more. Just as well. The income from repair dropped back to the same dollar per hour income that I made back in the 70's.  
Back then it was a good income I could live on and bank some money. Not so anymore with inflation. Of course, back then min wage was between $1.35 and $1.75 / hr,  gas was .89  a gallon, bread was .25 a loaf, and a huge hamburger with fries & drink was like $2.50. Not a McD one either. At least in my area.
 You also could call Factory Tech Support and get a totally competent tech on the phone to help troubleshoot the "Tough Dogs" too. Days gone by.........

When you think of all the skills being lost because of the lack of interest of today's young folks, it's pretty sad.