Father’s Day rolled around recently, and I couldn’t help but notice that all the cards and greetings revolved around fixing stuff. As if the Universal Fixing Guy is your Dad…or a Dad. I suppose that may be true in some sense, and I don’t mean to shortchange all the mothers out there who end up being the Fix-It Person, but it all still points to someone you eventually call to fix your stuff.
I always keep a mental short list (very short) of people that fall into this category. If you are a road warrior, I’m sure you have a shop guru that you call on occasion. I’ll bet you have an appliance person. You probably have a mechanic that you like. You always take your car there…always…unless you’re one of those people that lease (a process that utterly and completely confuses me) in which case, never mind. But your mechanic and your appliance person are people you trust implicitly. If they’re good, they will tell you like it is. Yes, you need a new transmission, and yes, it’s pricey. Oil change? A little easier on the wallet, but it has to be done. Control panel on that oven? Toast. The woman that ran the service desk at a certain car dealer near me was a local legend. I actually used to look forward to getting a repair done.
“No User-Serviceable Parts Inside”
That is one of my favorite warnings. It’s largely true, but it still doesn’t stop me from taking apart whatever is broken and giving it a go. It’s the First Commandment of the Throw-away Society. Why make something repairable when you know good and well that somebody clicking through Amazon will just buy another? There is a whole design philosophy that dictates planned obsolescence, yet you can source parts and repairable items with more ease than ever. Heck, you can even buy the stickers that say, “No User Serviceable Parts Inside,” and my other favorites, “Do Not Drop” and “Warranty Void if Removed.” YouTube has become synonymous with the DIY crowd, and practically anyone with a smartphone and 15 minutes can find a fix for just about anything.
Decent parts stores are hard to come by, though, so when you find one, spread the word. I always know I’ve found the perfect parts store when I walk in and it feels like a front for a witness protection program. There’s usually some sparse glass display countertops and a nervous, smiling person standing behind them. This person can usually tell you SKU and part numbers from memory and will disappear behind a door only to magically reappear with said part inside of five minutes.
Repair people are funny like that. Anyone who regularly opens up TVs, motors, and other dangerously complicated items has to be a little off, right? My appliance guy is one-in-a-million. He’s a second generation, one-man business owner, slightly asocial, fast talker, and completely honest. He can recall totally obscure part numbers off the top of his head with frightening accuracy and speed. He has diagnosed problems for me while on the phone driving to another repair across town, and I could practically hear the gears turning in his head to come up with a solution. He’s also reasonably priced, which is rare these days.
The Brick Zone
Yes, practically every part for everything out there is available, and it can be at your doorstep (or droned in) within a day or so. And yes, it’s fun to take stuff apart and learn how the thing ticks. But there is almost always a point of no return. I refer to this as the “brick zone.” Hmmm…If I just remove that one weird looking piece, it should just slide out and…Bzztttt! You are the proud owner of a brick. That’s also usually the point where I think, “Hey wait….I’ve got a guy!”
We had an iconic electronics parts place close recently where I live, and it was a sad day. No one I knew actually knew the guy’s name that ran the place. He was always referred to as “the guy from that electronics place on the East side.” But he was one of those people that made the short Rolodex list. If it was obscure and no one knew how to fix it, this was the guy. In fact, I was at a rival place recently, and we all laughed because someone walked in with a problem, and we all caught ourselves saying, “Check with that guy on the East side…”. Sadly, there was a massive sale of some really good stuff when they closed, but maybe a little of the repair karma rubbed off on everyone.
I used to work at a shop that was chock full of people like this. We had audio specialists, lighting commandos, projection freaks…you name it — we were all top notch. We had a computer rental department before it was cool or even necessary to have one. And the computer people regularly talked with the rental folks just to keep up on stuff (point of fact — we all geeked out on the computer folks, but we would never actually admit it). We also made mistakes, or what we thought were mistakes. Occasionally, a projector would fail, or the signal path we worked out just didn’t jive with the rest of the rig. If that happened, there was an immediate call to “our guy” at the shop. And we had the ultimate. This guy read and memorized manuals for fun. He could quote paragraphs from the manuals of the most obscure piece of gear we had, verbatim. He was usually busy checking gear in, or trying to fix some forlorn piece of forgotten electronics, but he’d always pick up the phone and he always had an answer. If you got into some tall grass in the middle of nowhere, this was your guy.
Since going solo, my supply of immediately available information freaks has dwindled. My list has actually started to become more refined, shorter, and it does not include Siri, Alexa, or any other AI-speaking-dictionary. It may be because, more and more, I’ve started to fix things on my own. It may be that I’m a holdover from a pre-Google era where the Dewey decimal system forced you to look for what you needed. Maybe it’s pride screwing with me.
I know, we all pride ourselves on our extensive knowledge in our particular field. But every once in a while, we need a wingman that can just tell us how things are. The audio folks are deep and quiet, they’re the consummate poker players. Hold’em straight to the last and then tip the hand. The video people smile and say “Everything’s great, and it will remain so…until we say otherwise.” The lighting people walk around like peacocks on steroids. “Did you see that two-pixel offset with a full audience blind right when the chorus hit? Awesome!”
But we all have a secret, unspoken short list of people we’d call if the gig turns south. And decent tools. I’ve ranted about tools in the past, but decent electronics tools are absolutely necessary nowadays.
When I can’t solve something, or the timer at the gig starts to run out, my short list starts to materialize and, depending on the situation, the names start to glow differently in a well-defined font that creeps up in the back of my skull like a neon sign in the desert that I’m speeding past in the middle of the night. Gas, food, lodging…repairs…knowledge…
Call your person — they’d know the answer…
