we’ve all got ’em. you know, that family member, maybe a cousin, somebody who is normally pretty handy with fixing stuff. the kind of guy you call when you need a hand with something because it’s out of your comfort zone.

“sure! i’ll take a look” he says, and “will be more than happy to give it a shot”.

trouble is, many times, this guy really has no idea what he is doing. but what does he care? it’s not his, it’s yours and it’s already broke. can’t really get much worse, so he’s got nothing to lose. he’s making a few bucks on the side, and if he gets it fixed, that’s a bonus! doesn’t really matter how he gets it done, just “get ‘er done”! a little riggin’ here, a little riggin’ there and presto, that should work (for awhile).

well… i said all that to say this. i’ve been finding out that a few of you have been using these guys to try to fix your phones. aaand how do i know this? because you call me to fix it after he’s “fixed it”.

here lately, i’ve been fixing quite a few phones that have been fixed by somebody else – recently “fixed”. and it’s because some other guy is taking shortcuts and making decisions to try a different approach than what apple has paid millions in r&d and decided what actually should be in that phone.

i’m not there to hear what’s going on in their short-sighted mind, but as i’m re-repairing your phone, this is what i imagine they said (as i discover missing pieces and other surprises).

“no, i guess that part’s really not that important.” “it’s slowing me down, so i’ll just leave that part out.”

“whoops, too much torque on that screw and i stripped it.” “i’ll just leave it out, they’ll never know.”

“dang, where is that plastic temporary protective piece that was supposed to come off during the install?” “i must have left that piece in there.” “we’ll it won’t hurt anything”

trouble is, you do eventually find out, because your phone quits working. sometimes, it’s a simple, but inconvenient fix which ends up costing you more in the long run than if you had come to see me first. sometimes, the “repair guy” was just really practicing a repair (on your phone) and he really screws it up.

“oops, my screw driver slipped and i just knocked off that tiny part next to the screw i was trying to loosen” “it’s pretty tiny, so it’s prolly not that important.” “if it was important, they would have made it bigger, right?!”

we’ve fixed some pretty damaged phones in my history of repairing phones. from phones that have been run over, to ipads slammed in car doors. some have drowned in coca-cola only to live again, and again, and again before finally dying (kellie hehe). others hang on for dear life in a toddlers hands as a gift from their parents. they break it, i fix it (most times!)

other times, a guy calls me to fix his phone, so we meet and he hands me this bag of parts. i told him that he didn’t mentioned anything about me cleaning up a mess. he had just called me about fixing a screen, not reassembling his COMPLETELY dis-assembled phone. he had tried to order some parts off the internet and fix it himself. he had tried 26 times to assemble it to get it to work, each time a disappointing failure to turn on. i informed him that he may have jacked something up, but i would give it a shot, but i was still getting paid whether it worked or not. we normally charge extra for this sort of thing, because trying to sort out the jigsaw puzzle of parts takes much longer and usually some tiny part or two gets lost in the process, so we have to dig out another to take it’s place. well, 2 hours later, we finally had his phone reassembled and turned it over to hit the on switch with fingers crossed… success!!! he was so happy and i needed a break.

well, i’ve said all that to say this. would you trust your $30,000 car to a shade tree mechanic? then why trust your link to the external world (your iphone/ipad) with someone who can’t spell or is rude or hung over? i would never give my money to a person who didn’t appreciate me as a customer, no matter what the price. even if he’s watched the video on youtube, do you really trust your cousin to know what he’s doing with your delicate iphone? i didn’t think so. me neither.

you get what you pay for. so, just cut out the middle man, cousin “i think it can fix it”, and the “i’ve got a really special price for you part time, make some money on the side ‘repair’ guy” and let mr. fxr take care of your gear. we’ll treat it as if it were our gear. you get me, not some guy the “repair” guy hired to fill in while he takes a lunch or a nap. you get mr. fxr himself. give us a call and i will be there. 🙂

thanks for reading my attempt at a humorous venting session.