Kinda slow at work this week. Took Monday off to take care of the Jeep. I got a safety recall notice and now have new lower ball joints. Payed off a ticket and did traffic school online and stopped and ran an ad in the local buy and sell.
Since I had so much time on my hands during the week, I boned up on my Lexmark printer certifications. Most of the certifications I have are really a joke. The tests basically test your ability to search a PDF or HTML document and find the correct answer. Stuff I usually carry with me to reference anyway because who can remember all that stuff?
Printer manuals are typically over 300 pages. I have read a few of them in their entirety but basically if youv'e read one you've read them all. In the field, you never use 1% of the information in the manuals. Most of it boils down to your ability to replace parts and anylyze what the next step is if that doesn't fix it based on observations. The funny thing is that I've been fixing laser printers for 5+ years without certifications and with few problems.
Friday was an interesting day...
Because it was so slow in my area and a couple of Sacramento techs had to go to cover calls in the Bay Area, I had to drive down to SAC and cover thier calls. They sent the wrong memory on a server call so I sorted out that mess and re-orderd parts from the office. The other 2 calls were printer calls I handled on the way home basically.
I exchanged a laser printer for "Michaels" in Folsom. They are huge chain around here that handle art supply stuff. Both option trays had pickup rollers falling off. They print a huge amount of labels out of those trays. The result being lot's of potential problems since the parts would not be recieved until Monday and they are open 7 days.
Thinking quickly of where I actually was...I asked the manager if I could borrow a hot-glue gun. The gun didn't work but they had plenty of melted glue in the floral arangement counter area we could dab on the ends of the rollers. After gluing the rollers to the shaft the problem was temporarily solved. Parts will be in Monday,the company gets another call, and the customer is not impacted by the delay!
From there I went to Roseville to put a fuser in another printer which on that model takes around 5 minutes.
On the way home, I ran a personal call in the Chico area and set up DSL on one of my regulars. Got home around 11:30 or so.
Saturday ran 2 more private calls.
The purpose of the ad I ran is to generate more tech work. I can make more money in 3 hours than I make all day with my employer. Often I can blend the two so my employer pays most of the gas to get there except on the weekends of course. Since I have a mortgage to worry about, having an employer is almost necessary. Sidework is not too dependable usually but sure is nice.