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UPS - Your Computer Repair Depot?
dcsmith writes "UPS and Toshiba are entering into an agreement to have UPS provide warranty service on Toshiba laptops. Might not be as weird as it sounds -- they claim that the bulk of the effort in a computer repair is moving the computer and the necessary parts together. The actual repair itself is often trivial. I'm not sure I'm onboard 100%, but if its a faulty display or a bad CD drive, this might actually work ..."
This is basically the same problem organ transplantation has - transporting and speed is essential. Hearts and lungs must be transplanted within approximately 4 hours after being removed from the donor. Livers can be preserved between 12 - 18 hours; pancreas can be preserved 8 - 12 hours; intestines can be preserved approximately 8 hours; kidneys can be preserved 24 - 48 hours. (quoted from ) I wouldn't be too surprised to see the UPS people coming out from the back room in scrubs (and shorts, of course), and then washing up really well before going back.
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Would the repair be done at the depot? How is this any easier than shipping the parts and computer to a central location?
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
I imagine they actually bring them into a regional repair depot so they don't have to train their whole fleet of drivers
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
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Since they're responsible for breaking most of the notebook computers during delivery, they decided to close the loop and profit from it.
Else they might lose your laptop, like they recently lost Virginia students' test answers. WHOOPS!
In today's PCs and Laptops, everything is very modular. And at the same time the components are so tightly packed that you cannot possibly do 'real repairs' without major magnifying glass, special tools and access to documentation on the device that nobody outside the original manufacture can have.
:) Especially if the huge spares warehouse IS at the said shipping depot.
So its all about replacing dead parts until the thingy works. You can eliminate the cause by simple trial & error + pile of known working parts.
I know I've been 'trained' for laptop repairs of certain models. In about 30min for each model - which basically consisted of demonstrating how to disassemble and reassemble the thing, and which parts were replaceable and how ya could troubleshoot few of the most common faults.
Not rocket science... and if they can save on costs of moving things around by doing that in some shipping depot, more power to them
We've all rattled a vending machine to make something drop. Now Toshiba has realized that UPS' famed drop-kicking of packages has a potential payoff!
Yeah, this woulda been nice back in 1998 when I bought my Portege 7010CT. UPS (Pronounced: Oops) promised it would be there in five business days. Ten business days later, I finally got it. It's nice to see this, though. Of course, it could just be a way for UPS and Toshiba to make lots more money...I'm hoping that it will help boost business, though. 'Shiba makes some good laptops. (Let's just hope they get to YOU people on time and such.)
I bought a three year warranty for my HP laptop, and they promise next-day on-site service anywhere in the US. I'm sure HP hasn't got reps in every city on the continent. So how does this normally work? Where do the reps come from?
Interesting twist on "Inventory in Motion". Good solution for the reverse logistics loop.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
By using UPS outlets, Toshiba makes it really easy to provide service points for customers and nails the transport issue too.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I would rather have a local STORE that can do this work and quickly too. Gateway used to have stores and the screwed that up. If they had actually stocked components at the store then they would have been able to do the repair a whole lot quicker. as it is, it would have probably taken the same time if I had UPS'd it instead of hauling it into the store. That's NOT the only reason Gateway closed their stores, but it's a big one.
Gorkman
I bet Toshiba is making UPS fix all the stuff they break in the shipping process. I've gotten so many kicked packages from UPS. It's only right that they fix them, since they're probably the one's breaking them. It'll be great. UPS can fix them and kick them right back out the door.
Have UPS drivers become computer technicians!
Um, Hello Helpdesk?
This is Shipping/Receiving.
Yeah, the UPS driver is here to replace a systemboard in a laptop or something like that.
Can someone come down and get him?
Great. Thank you.
1. Pick-up computer to deliver.
2. Break it.
3. Deliver computer.
4. Pick-up computer to repair.
5. Profit!
A while back I got a laptop with a broken display handed to me, and managed to get my filthy fingersesss on a nice LCD screen that would fit it.
It was pretty damn hard and timeconsuming to replace that monitor, and I broke off a couple of plastic hinges. I thought I was treating it fairly well, but it required some force to get out. And I've worked tech support(yes hands on) for 5 years, for the Duuuude. Never with laptops though, I'm a server guy.
Getting back to the point - na, I dont think I'd like them to replace that part. But it's an interesting idea. Logistically it's not a problem at all, ANYTHING can be delivered "Next Business Day", as that's been used for years already. Most people that buy their own computer parts never see that, though, but if you buy your system with a nice system warranty from a serious vendor it's handy to know it'll be fixed the day after they send you a tech. Infact this is almost how it is today, except the courier doesn't replace the hardware at present, just exchange it with the customer. Imagine a disk fails in your server system and you wanna replace it yourself - ask to be sent just the new disk, and a courier brings it. Replacing a disk like that is not hard, though, so if you DON'T wanna do it yourself - why not have the courier do ALL that work and skip sending expensive technicians?
Great...., so not only will they repair your laptop, they'll drop kick it a few times before giving it back.
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This is either incredibly smart or incredibly stupid. It sounds like one of those business arrangements that in hindsight everyone says was brilliant or should never be mentioned again.
Developers: We can use your help.
I just got an order of books from Amazon today, shipped using their free Super Saver shipping, which ended up being UPS Ground in this case. I'm in Wisconsin, it came from Kentucky. I ordered Monday, they shipped Tuesday, they arrived Wednesday. That's pretty damned fast.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Given the brain dead contract technicians we usually get for PC repair, my guess is that the UPS guy/gal is probably OVERQUALIFIED for the position. Go "Brown".
I wish companies offered discounted DIY warranties, where they shipped you the part and a short instruction sheet and you could replace it yourself, even for semi-complicated things like keyboards.
Basically, it'd be a warranty on only parts, but you could choose to supply your own labor (instead of paying them to do it).
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Now UPS can read your hard drive as well as open your packages.
Apparently, the only reason that the specific search in the linked case was questionable was the fact that the UPS employee opening the packages would sometimes allow DEA agents to assist her if they were on site and the package was difficult to open.
Of course, a "Toshiba repair shop" would likely be free to do the same, as they are also a private entity. (Only government entities are "required" to abide by the Bill of Rights.)
Read, L
...trust me, this is a bad idea. I did a year as a Loader/Unloader at UPS. With the way we treated those packages I'm surporised andyone gets anything from UPS in good condition. One time the Stanley Cup came through my hub and got lost for 3 days. Management had us combing the building for the crate. And on the third day it just showed up in the international section. Whoever stole it must have realized the shitstorm they had started up. Before thanksgiving one year we had 50 Turkeys packed in ice that somehow didn't make it on the last truck (on Monday we had a small hill of individually packed rotting meat floating in water. I've got a million UPS horror stories. Trust me you don't want to ship anything UPS. And if you do ship UPS, package your stuff so that it could at least withstand being drop kicked 20 feet into a metal wall...
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
Like the article says the laptops are shipped to a central facility where the laptops are worked on. Radio Shack does the same thing, as they take Compaq laptops for repair. I should have trusted my gut on Radio Shack and stayed far away, but I brought an out-of-warranty Compaq to them that had problems turning on without a battery. So I give them the laptop and the bobo at the repair facility says they have to replace the mobo to the tune of $800. I explained to him that I thought the problem was probably with the charging unit and to try that first, but he wouldn't have any of it. I told him to pack it up and send it back.
After that I went in search of a way to repair it myself, and I found Impact Computers, which stocks just about every laptop component under the sun for a decent price (including replacement plastic covers for your more clutzy co-workers) I ordered a new charging board and sure enough it worked for a fraction of the price even if they had made a correct diagnosis in the first place. Suck on that you so-called technician!
-R
Fast Company has an article talking about bringing the parts of the supply chain together.
:)
Turns out they're not only looking to do warranty support, but they're looking to provide customer service and call center support. Everyone wants to be a global services kind of company nowadays
But if you actually have a day job, are trying to get your personal laptop repaired, and have to rely on UPS residential service (or company depots) for this... Take a gun and shoot your laptop. It will be cheaper and less aggravating in the long run to buy a new one than to try to deal with UPS's poor residential service and their very limited depot hours.
UPS will need to make the UPS Stores network a prime feature of this, or Toshiba will have a LOT of very unhappy ex-customers.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
I worked for a company years ago that did pretty much this same thing. It was a freight and logistics company and one of the customers was Apple Computer. We coordinated supply chains for the parts and brought the assembled systems, packaged and all, to where the end customer or store was. Less bother for the manufacturer.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
UPS has been providing spare repair parts for Toshiba for some time, this is just a natural extention of that argreement.
Disclaimer: I was the data collection lead for UPS warehousing.
Of course I do like getting stuff shipped to me via FedEx.
We have an IBM authorized repair shop at work and our techs groan when they get a ThinkPad in to work on. Even for what you'd think would be a simple repair they sometimes have to strip the machine completely, and there are a million little bits and pieces. IBM is typically really good about easy-to-maintain designs so if a ThinkPad is that complex, I can only assume other company's laptops are as bad or worse.
:-)
I wouldn't trust anyone but an expert to hack at my laptop... it's way to important to my self-image
How appropriate. You fight like a cow.
Whats up the promo id on the url? Who is getting clickthroughs/paid/something for me clicking on this link?
its a great way to generate some revenue.. embed a clickthrough payment link and get it on slashdot... 3+ million people click, thats great cash even at a fraction of a fraction of a penny for each.
Things that make you say... hmmm....
i read about this 6 months ago in Fast Company, a management magazine... Go figure...
They claim that the bulk of the effort in a computer repair is moving the computer and the necessary parts together.
Hey! UPS' own incompetence is finally paying off!
1. Obstruct and make shipping process as difficult as possible.
2. ????
3. Profit from Toshiba
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I remember when we used to have to do computer repair for UPS. Back in '95 or '96 there was quite a rash of false computer damage claims. I think someone started passing around instructions on how to rip off UPS, but it didn't take UPS long to catch on and start bringing in damage claims for assessment and repair.
I was working for a small local computer shop at the time and we didn't do a huge volume of UPS claims, but what I saw was outrageous. Yeah, there were a couple of legitimate claims - almost always loose cards or cables from vibration - but most of the fraudulent ones didn't even try. VLB cards stuck in ISA slots, toasted motherboards, junk components just jammed in a case... nothing that even looked remotely like shipping damage.
Not sure what they did to the people that tried to pull this stuff, but the claims seemed to stop almost as fast as they started.
the only Super Saver shipping I've seen has been shipped through Fedex and it's always 2-3 days.
I think they are pretty efficient. Once they actually receive a package, they've always delivered it in a timely manner. Depending on which zone I order from, things generally arrive in 1-3 days once shipped. My biggest delays have always been with retailers being slow in actually sending teh package. UPS is very reasonable for the cost. The best value in shipping is certainly USPS Priority Mail. Rates starting at under $4 for 2-3 day service. People bag on the postal service constantly, but I am always amazed at what they do. Considering the volume they handle, their accuracy is outstanding. To think I can drop a letter in that blue box on the corner and have it delivered anywhere in a matter of days is truly remarkable. We've grown awfully whiney with our easy modern lives. When you think about what actually has to has to happen for a package to be sent from one doorstep to another, it's rather impressive.
Another original use for UPS (UPS Stores, actually) is as a drop-off point for stuff to sell on eBay. You don't even have to have an eBay account - this company will take care of everything for you (for a commission, of course).
I worked as a technician for UPS once. It's amazing what people will do to try to get their machines replaced by UPS. Some would ship really ancient machines with thousands in insurance then claim it was damaged in shipment. One guy was really upset because he had paid to have an old machine sent as a high value shipment but on inspection it was worth less than $50. Blame it on Seinfeld episodes...
This is not to say that UPS didn't damage stuff. THey did. Lots of stuff. Sometimes I was amazed that equipment actually arrived in working order. There was one machine that was run over by a truck -- no kidding. Footprints on boxes? Yup, many times. Pilferage. Yup.
No point to this post other than a rant. They have the illusion of high tech but their hubs are ripped right from the 1940's.
I worked at Dell last year as a temp, repairing laptops. Basically, I either replaced the entire base (swapping out the CPU, drives, memory, and keyboard to the new base), or replaced the LCD assembly, or the CPU/drives/memory/keyboard. That pretty much covers all laptop problems. All the parts came preassembled from Malaysia - it took nearly zero knowledge to repair, and we sent the old assemblies back to Malaysia or somewhere to be recycled.
12:50 - press return.
Dell's on-site service consists of outsourcing to local tech-monkey providers, I think IBM in our area. What happens is they dispatch a guy a with little knowledge and a lot of parts. You ten get peices of your computer replaced until it's not broken anymore. It's rather inefficient and we all got a big kick out of watching the time it takes for simple tasks (like replacing a faulty disk in a RAID, which is fully hot-swappable and non-critical) but Dell would rather their tech did it.
So all UPS needs is to handle the parts (no problems here) and get/outsource some low-level tech people that can install them, given an instructions sheet.
IMO, it would be interesting who proposed the idea?
Did UPS ask Toshiba? (eg they want to diversify their business model).
OR
Did Toshiba approach UPS? (eg they want to get out of repairing customer computers).
Of course, UPS can always HIRE trained, certified laptop repair persons as well. I don't think the drivers will be fixing them anytime soon.
They must have a partnership... I ordered a monitor one afternoon and it was on my porch waiting for me the next afternoon. Considering how far I am from the nearest UPS hub, all I can figure is that they have a stock of parts onsite.
Or wormholes.
My blog can kick your blog's ass
I'll post this AC for fear of being hunted down and slaughtered by my evil UPS-corporate overlords... but the rumours are true. We, at UPS, really do drop-kick your boxes. Off the trucks to the belt isn't so bad, the damages happen in the trailer. They crank the belt up so high that packages will literally start piling into the ass end of the trailer if your packers aren't working fast enough. Unfortunatly, most of the time the only way to work fast enough is to not give a shit about the packages, and just start throwing them. But of course, the managers would never slow the belts down, because then we might be a little late *gasp*. So yeah, you basically get trained to break things.
:).
;)
:)
After a while it becomes fun though, almost like a game. We do all sorts of stuff to your crap. Sit on boxes, stand on boxes, drop boxes, throw them, kick them, drop heavy boxes on lighter boxes... its a great stress reliever really! Some highlights from my UPS-trailer career include:
- Sliding on packages down the rollers like a slip'n'slide.
- Taking long, heavy automotive parts like suspension pieces, and using them as javelins to impale other boxes
- Finding the absolute heaviest package on the truck, lining it up over some other boxes, and then going "Oops!" as you roll it into the belly to smash the other boxes
- Using any sort of metallic crate, case, or box, and tossing it onto other boxes so the sharp corners rip into the packages
- Building a wall of packages until only a small, 2 ft gap is left at the top of the trailer, and then taking small, light packages, and drop-kicking them over the wall like a football player. We even keep score (honestly, we do).
- Having shotput competitions with really heavy packages. The bags we use for letters are really fun, because you can swing them like a hammer-toss for extra distance.
- Playing "smash-up-boxes", or "Darwinism". Basically two guys take random boxes and throw them at eachother and see which one survives the impact the best. The winner then takes on a new challanger. Its supposed to find the "ultimate package", but generally it just leaves a whole lot of beat up crap scattered around.
Oh, and don't bother labling your packages "fragile". For one, they don't get treated any better than anything else (the ONLY packages that get treated with kid-gloves are the specially insured high-values). For a second thing, fragiles can actually be treated WORSE than regular packages. Probably 75% of everything we move has a "fragile" sticker somewhere on it. Even if the part is an 80lb chunk of metal, you idiot customers still seem to think its "fragile" and that we need to gently carress while placing it in the trailer. So when we see boxes that are marked fragile, its kind of insulting. Especially packages that are obviously not fragile, or overly labled ("OMG FRAGIEL PLZ DONT DROP OR STAND ON END PLZ K THNX BYE!!"). We target those packages for extra abuse
Other things we hate and tend to abuse are boxes that are shitty and falling apart, or just too thin to hold their contents correctly. Since those kinds of things tend to bust open easilly, we like to drop the heavier stuff on them to see what happens. Also, be wary of heavier boxes with shifting loads. If a worker is ever injured by your box (contents shift and smack you in the face, box opens and contents fall on your foot or whatever), then your package will get the "royal treatment". Royal meaning we royally beat the fuck out of your stupid goddamn package.
Anyways, I hope that little insight into UPS was enough to convince some of you to never ship with our shitty fucking company ever again.
Cheers!
I don't think a company commonly known as 'United Parcel Smashers' is an appropriate place to take something to be _repaired_. The replacement parts they get shipped in would probably all be busted in transit, anyway.
...UPS has announced they plan to change their name to "un1tED P4rc3l 53RViC3"
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
We were just talking about this in class the other day. Its not all that new. UPS has been building many Dell's computers for awhile now.
Business News and Resources: www.usasource.net
I'm going to guess that UPS uses a lot of Tosiba laptops and this made business sense for them, as they now probably get lots of parts at cost.
This is kinda like Amazon becoming a ICANN certified domain selling company.... it was cheaper for them to manage all the domains themselves then it was to go through netsol.
UPS drivers aren't replacing anything, they are simply shipping them to a center where techs replace the parts, then ship them back. While the article gives the impression that the techs will be UPS employees, they still are most likely experienced laptop repair techs, not guys pulled from big brown trucks - if only because it's probably easier to find good laptop techs then good truck drivers these days.
It isn't that unusual for shipping companies to do other loosly related stuff - for example, outpost.com outsources their wharehousing/pick n pack/shipping to Airborne - if you buy anything from outpost, it will ship from "1 Airborne Drive" somwhere in Ohio.
I have blog like everyone else
My computer fixed in India by tomorrow, I only trust UPS to get it there on time.
~mingust
I own a Toshiba laptop, and I for one do not want UPS even touching it. So do I as a Toshiba customer get a choice in who is repairing my equipment?
This sig was generated by a barrel of trained kittens for SeXy_Red (550409).
Maybe soon they will work out a deal with APC.
So UPS will fix my UPS.
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So now they can fix the Computers they break? I guess that will be included as a nother service tax of a few hundred dollars.
:P
Does it include free monitring of drive contents for the ISA/FBI asswell?
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Mail via UPS your broken laptop to yourself. Insure it for twice what it is worth. After recieving it, report that the laptop was broken in the shipment and demand the full payment. Then buy a new laptop. Or hope that they lose it, and you get the money for a new laptop anyway.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
the package for $300, which was a few dollars less than it was worth. They paid the claim almost a year later. UPS seems OK for most things, but I will never send anything fragile or irreplaceable by UPS again.
...in other news, parent actually works for FedEx and just got a stock bonus...
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The idea is utterly preposterous. United Parcel Service is clueless about computer issues, if my experience is any guide. UPS WorldShip software is amazingly poorly designed, and the installation is primitive. I needed installation instructions, and had to write them myself: UPS Online WorldShip Software Installation and Un-installation Instructions. No one at UPS has thought to put the instructions online. One UPS tech support rep. told me that was because they wanted to have as many people calling them as possible, so they could keep their jobs.
I have a friend that has to ship his computer from home to school and back all the time. He insures the delivery and very carefully packs up the PC. So far, UPS has destroyed the PC 4 times. In one case, they cracked the CPU (don't know how).
What this means is that they paid for a new PC about every 6 months for the guy. That's a round-about way to do PC repair.
I'd be more inclined to agree with you, if we were talking about DESKTOPS here, but we're talking NOTEBOOKS!
I don't know how many notebook computers you've personally repaired, but I've worked on quite a few - and I'd say it's by far the most challenging type of computer repair out there.
Among other things, it takes lots of patience and care, because you're dealing with lots of very small screws (often several different sizes for different parts of the system) that can easily get lost, along with fragile ribbon cables, etc. Outer plastic shell parts are often tricky to snap apart without breaking off tabs, and sometimes you have little pieces that have to be carefully placed in just the right spot before snapping other pieces closed around them (CPU cooling ducts and the like).
The last thing I want is some moron rushing through a $3000 laptop repair, losing parts and breaking things in the process!
Is it rocket science? Of course not. But like anything involving tiny parts crammed into small spaces, you have to be CAREFUL.
Yep.... Granted, this was at least 5 years ago, but one of my good friends worked for UPS and told me a story about their loading dock here in the midwest.
He said they had been short on space, so they were ordered to stack boxes up in a 6 or 7 foot high "wall". When it came time to get these boxes loaded on the trucks, a supervisor came along, ordering them to "tear it down!". They just let the whole thing fall all over the concrete floor, without any concern as to whether or not boxes near the top of the pile were "fragile".
First they fix them. Then they licence the brands. Then they buy the designs and produce them. When we finally have nice 3-d object printers that do for complex physical objects what Print on Demand technology does for books, then they will be Universal Product Supply. The giant brands of the world will be studios...
Or maybe Flextronics and UPS merge?
After watching like a hawk my packages transit the UPS system, I've got to wonder how many repair depots they will make. Typically packages take very little time to reach the nearest large megadepot (Ohio, New Jersey, theres one in California) but going cross country and going back the last 300 miles takes a fairly long time. If every large UPS hub had a repair depot, this would be great. But would they but one in every hub? Transit times between hubs are fairly high; then again, I usually ship ground because I'm a cheap bastard.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
My first thought is that UPS likely has IT guys around the country. Ship your laptop to the nearest one (in your state quite likely) and someone there will fix it and then fix a UPS owned machine. Seems like a perfect fit, a company with offices everywhere, many of which can do this work, and service goes up.
Cept that instead they ship it too a central location. sigh, so close to same day service everywhere, even middle of nowhere North Dakota.
... and i'm really not trying to troll.
.DXF file, and its there in the morning ...
but wasn't it 1982 someone said that FedEx was the future of all future corporate enterprises, and was fundamentally the nee-plus ultra of all forms of commerce, forever?
Wake me up (and still, not trolling) when I can send ShipCo. Inc, my own
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Every so often a new huge customer signs up, every so often an old one leaves. A seller of mid-to-upper range servers used to move all kinds of equipment back and forth to customers this way without it ever leaving UPS's hands -- and the customer usually doesn't know this!
Many of the agreements are basically just warehousing - you order a bunch of Sprint phones, and boxes full of brand new phones are pulled off of a shelf in some warehouse UPS runs, and a special nightly trailer pickup takes them to a major air hub that's right across town. Other agreements do involve repair. So, there's fundamentally absolutely nothing new about this story, other than that Toshiba laptops are now involved.
Yes, I do work for them.
--
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So when you get your computer back are the sides all bashed in and makes a loud rattling sound?
The last thing I want is some moron rushing through a $3000 laptop repair, losing parts and breaking things in the process!
Honestly, whom do you think Toshiba employs in their repair shops now? You can be sure it's not an EE. Six of one...
Besides, you all aren't reading TFA. They aren't going to be doing computer repairs in the local UPS hub or depot, all of the repairs are going to one central UPS shop in Louisville, KY. So it's either morons who work for Toshiba in God Knows Where or morons who work for UPS in Kentucky, what's the difference from the consumer POV?
but yeah er, thanks for confirming my worst fears about package delivery firms.. :/ astounding. anyone managed to get a hidden camera on that? hmm new TV series idea: "America's Worst Package Deliveries". wouldn't be worse than most of what's on...
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Actually, no, it won't. I bought a Toshiba Satellite last year and in spite of an under-warranty replacement of the CD burner, it still can't burn more than about 400 MB to a CD-R or CD-RW.
There's no use in warranty work when the fault is in the product design.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Evidently you are lacking the Toshiba laptop repair and service guide. Toshiba actually have a book on how to replace any part on any Toshiba model that is in the book.
Not only that, but Toshiba number their screw holes and the guide of which screw size to which hole is in the guide.
Toshiba have got it right, most internal parts are either clearly labled, or the diagram in the service guide is clear enough to follow to the last screw. The guide even covers how to put it all back together with notes on the tricky parts.
I would actualy wager that you could use the guide and order all the parts seperatly, and build your own Toshiba laptop...
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They man-handled the box so roughly that components came loose from their sockets on the motherboard.
And we never got a dime on the claim we filed for damages.
Dear Shit for Brains,
You didn't convince me of somthing that I didn't alreay know. Almost every company has some disgruntled workers - perhaps fifteen percent of their workforce. But the majority of their workers are hard working honest people who take pride in their work. Sure, they may have a few gripes but they do the best they can do and many, perhaps most - really stretch to go the extra distance.
Too bad that small percentage - the people like you - hurt the reputation of the majority! If you worked flipping burgers, you would be the asshole that spits on the burgers. Jerks like you are everywhere and you hurt the honest hardworking people who only want a decent day's pay for a decent days work.
You can't possibly convince me that you are more than a small percentage of the workforce. I get laptops shipped to me every day and of the thousands that I have handled over the years, I have yet to have had one damaged in shipping. You should see some of them I get too. At least once a week, I will get one in a "letter box."
One of your competitors has delivered a laptop in working condition to me that had the shipping label pasted directly on the computer!
I'd advise you to find a better attitude, the one you have now does not serve you well and will prevent you from getting somewhere in life.
It was Friday afternoon around quitting time, and it hadn't arrived.
So you went home.
So UPS showed up, and left the package (perhaps ignoring the 'signature required' - you don't say so, but perhaps).
What were they supposed to do? Bring it back to their special freezer for people who don't stick around to make sure $20K packages are properly handled?
And what about insurance, anyway? Had you not heard that packages don't *always* arrive on time and intact?
Sheesh.
I work for a small jeweler in new england, and we're fed-up with ups loosing packages.
We make sure that anthing that goes out ups gets packed tripple, inside two boses... believe me, I've seen what happens when a package gets returned to us that's been through hell and back, the only thing that is recognisable is the ups label...
I would not want ups doing this crap with toshiba, having a rack mounted server a few years ago shipped to 7 different counteries, yes I kid you not, and ending up completly destroyed, and ups is going to handle parts etc for toshiba... ok, I must be dreaming... !
Speaking as someone who just took a Toshiba laptop in for "official" repair today after a "bad blocks" message and a bit of tinkering, I must point out that the hard drive in the particular model of Toshiba laptop I was working with was under a cover on the bottom of the laptop held by two screws. The cover plate was stamped with the words "Hard Drive". Inside the compartment was, you guessed it, the hard drive. It was held in place by a couple of small screws, and connected via a ribbon cable.
It's not anywhere near as technical as removing a HD from a Powerbook (personally, I did surgery on an old Lombard model from 1999). That involved such difficult tasks as "removing the keyboard by holding back two spring latches and pulling it upward", "unscrewing the cage that holds the hard drive", and "plopping a new drive in place of the old one". The toughest part of that ordeal was finding a Torx-8 wrench.
Yeah, some laptops were designed reasonably well. Apple, Dell and Toshiba seem to be reasonably good at this. But there are others much less so... swapping the hard drive in a friend's HP-something laptop involved the following procedure (I'm not making this up):
1. Remove plastic cover between keyboard and screen. This is accomplished by inserting a small flat-blade screwdriver between the cover and keyboard and prying up in 3 places, hoping that you don't break the tabs in the process.
2. Unscrew 4 screws above keyboard - these are some extremely small and easily-strippable Torx bit, T-4 maybe.
3. Dislodge keyboard ribbon cable retaining mechanism while pressing down on front-panel connector. Remove cable and keyboard.
4. Remove CD-ROM drive retaining bracket, floppy drive retaining bracket, and for optimal working space around the hard drive, removal of the CPU heat sink/fan assembly is preferred.
5. Unscrew 4 hard drive screws. Use needle to shift IDE locking mechanism 2mm left. Pry between motherboard and laptop-IDE right angle adapter to remove drive.
6. Reverse procedure.
That was LOTS of fun to figure out, let me tell you.
Your absolutely right! I've repaired hundreds of laptops and frankly after a full day of working on them, you feel like someone beat the hell out of you with a baseball bat from all that concentrating on not screwing something up. However the real problem with an "A+" tech doing the repair and it being a monkey-replace-part issue, is that you have to get the part right the first time! Your warranty reimbursement from the manufacturer is directly proportional to the repair's efficiency. The dotbomb days of "throw parts at it until it starts working" doesn't work today. With the 50 USD per warranty claim reimbursement the company is getting, how good do you think these bench monkeys are?
So if you think about it, anyone good at troubleshooting hardware problems is not going to work for the wages they want to pay. Therefore, the repair is nearly guaranteed at being screwed up. Either due to a hasty repair or a moron.
Until someone has actually done the work, they shouldn't comment on it being a "replace parts issue" like the grandparent post.
As a person who ships stuff alot, I can definitely assure you that UPS really has poor standards when it comes to handling packages. When I first opened, I chose UPS. Customers constantly complained about smashed boxes, broken parts, and dents. The stuff was packed well (not any worse than I've packed stuff in the past for use with USPS)
A buddy of mine has been working for UPS for well over a year doing this exact same thing out of the Louisville, KY UPS hub. Not for Toshiba, but for HP, Dell and Gateway notebooks.
Not things like power supplies, modems, NIC's....etc etc. There are many thigs in a computer that stay constant. When was the last time you needed something other then a 10/100 MB NIC or a 56 K modem? If they were standard components like CD-RW drives and the like they could also sell them to anyone who wanted them. Things that DO change every year don't have problems like power supplies do.....ie the Motherboard.
Gorkman
Even better, when it ships from wherever in northern illinois and you get it next day. (i'm in WI too)
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
BTW, just one of the reasons why I use FedEx.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
UPS could just as well start a pizza company, contracting out the making of the pizza and just doing the delivery. They could not only deliver the pizza but also keep their subcontractor kitchens supplied with ingredients. Come to think of it, why should they be satisfied to deliver goods for other companies? They could run their own online ordering service like Amazon.com.
Back in the day, I worked for a major PC manufacturer. When someone would call up and needed some minor part in their computer replaced under warranty, it always made me wince - after covering all of the costs of sending out a technician, a $40 part could easily end up costing us $200 to replace. It only takes one of those to devour the profits on a good number of PC's.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
IANAUPSE (I am not a UPS employee), but I used
to be a customer. Never again.
(1) on the delivery dock of my employer when
$15K worth of Compaq servers were delivered,
and signed for. The product was originally
destined for a company across town.
(2) packages marked "Signature Only" delivery
left on a neighboring business's doorstep
(3) package marked (all over) "Fragile Glass"
arrived with a smashed corner & tinkled:
$6K flatbed scanner (in original factory
box) was dropped from a height of 6 feet.
(The same packaging protected same equipment
on 12K mile trip from Japan.)
Why would anyone trust such a delivery company?
IMHO, UPS is good for one thing only: stress
testing MIL spec ruggedized equipment.
I can not comment on shipping problems in other parts of the U.S. Here in western NC UPS is the best shipper for any kind of packages. I do a fair amount of ordering over the phone and on the internet. When ever possible I have it shipped via UPS. Fed Ex is never on time and just forget even using USPS. I have never received a damaged item or had anything lost or even late with UPS. I have had three computers shipped to me (including a laptop) and several very sensitive electronic items and never had a problem. I am sure that in different parts of the country that service varies and that Fed Ex and the others may be better in some places. As far as western NC goes the best one here is still UPS.
SonicAir, a subsidiary of UPS, warehouses parts for several computer manufacturers, most notably Dell. When you have a 2-4hr on-site contract with Dell, SonicAir fulfills the parts the tech requested for the repair.
So, they have some experience in this area....
Hello AC!
You've never even met an EE, I take it?
I'm betting this will come down to- you say there's something wrong with your laptop, they swap your hard disk into another refirbished laptop of your model and send it back- it still dosen't work; they try it one more time, then you loose the hard drive.
Somewhere along the line a tech will look at all the 'dead' laptops and find the working ones, as well as fix easy to repair ones, and lable them refirbished for other people to get on exchange.
But all UPS will be doing is swapping hard disks- you grandmother, while drunk, could do that.
-Millions of Monkeys, Millions of typewriters, 6 hours of sorting through faeces encrusted pages to find: This post
UPS can come repare my computer, but Toshiba better ship my packages!
Reminds me of this poor guy who shipped his mac with UPS ground (and yes, the images are still online).
They took care of his computer all right...
This is why I love IBM Thinkpads :) To remove the hard drive, undo one screw on the bottom, remove the side-cover, and slide it out! (though my new laptop is a PowerBook, and I don't even think I know how to open the sucker, even if I removed the screws)
This is not the first time something similar has been done. About 8 years ago, Packard Bell contracted with FedEx to provide warranty repair for their computers. FedEx then outsourced the service calls to people like me. ALL of the repairs were simple plug & replace. If the hard drive was replaced, we carried a master cdrom to re-install the base software on site. FedEx simply provided the overnight shipment of the parts to me. You didn't fiqure out why a problem happened, just get the system up to original spec and go onto the next call.
I wonder how they're going to repair this one? (Shipped with UPS, nota bene)
Here's the associated Slashdot story.
"There are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare." - Blair Houghton
Ship it with insurance. Then at least one UPS employee with treat it nicely. I shipped a projector back for warranty repair and had $2000 insurance put on it. Our UPS person freaked when they missed that. If anything "happened" to that package, she was going to have to pay for it. Considering it was already broke, I thought it was funny myself. I got the insurance mostly incase it was lost in delivery.
Here's a reason for you. A big box of family Christmas presents is delivered to a completely different address in another borough of NYC. Signed over to a complete stranger, signature viewable on the web. UPS refused to accept responsibility until the end of January, at which point they refunded the sender $100. No admission of wrongdoing, just a "fsck off, shit happens at Christmas, go buy yourself a toy."
So yes, they do suck. I applaud the badmouthing and will repeat it every chance i get..
===---===
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Will they be shipped using UPS or FedEx?
[Please sign here]
The last thing I want is some moron rushing through a $3000 laptop repair, losing parts and breaking things in the process!
Me, either! I prefer to break it myself, slowly and with utmost care.
FWIW, UPS has never bollixed any of my shipments. <disclosure>I own a small amount of UPS stock</disclosure> because they're so good at what they do.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
That's what UPS stands for. I use Airborne/DHL at work and no complaints. I got in a shipment from UPS once and one corner of this box was crushed to half its height. Thankfully the NIC inside was unharmed. I regret not taking a picture of that as a reminder of how UPS treats packages. I've also heard the story of packages falling off the belt on the floor or whatever. I also remember hearing that drivers are doing their routes so fast that there isn't time to load in a logical order and deliveries just mean the package tossed on your stoop and the doorbell rang and the truck is down the street by the time you open your door. I do agree that perhaps proper packing of items certainly helps. Best thing to use is crimped paper and air pillows which is what I use. One of the advantages of having access to extra unwanted packing materials that would normally be thrown out at work.
-- After all is said and done, more is said than done.
I've both sent and received numerous packages via UPS and never had any trouble at all.
Although once, a non-UPS employee at an independent store in south central LA packed a laptop with a single layer of bubblewrap and somehow imagined that would be enough for it to survive being buffeted in a completely empty box 2 feet cubed. Everything I've ever dealt with from south central LA seems to be screwed up in some way.. I guess civilization is just out to lunch there.
Well, the offical UPS numbers are as such.
UPS accepts 13.5 million packages a day. They have about 35 million packages in the system at any one moment in time. If they had only 99.9% flawless service at any one time, that would be 1,300 problems a day, 30,000 a month (I woulda thought it would mean 39,000 a month, but those are the numbers I've heard from UPS)
So yeah, there would be alot of horror stories. I'm willing to bet of the 39,000 a month, mabey 40 are the really bad kind that you tell your children around the campfire. I personally have been using UPS religiously for several years now, and haven't ever had a single problem. How many system admins could say that with a load of 35million users at any moment, they wouldn't have a single glitch?
--Cam
All jocks think about is sports. All nerds think about is sex.
And thats why I know businesses that hate them.
One screw + quick fingers and you have a laptop with a missing hard drive. People steal everything that is not bolted down, and Thinkpad hard drives are just too quick to remove for a computer that is accessible by 'random' people - even in a place where the systems are supposedly watched over. You just slide the laptop side over an edge of a desk, use small screwdriver in your palm to remove the screw, and slide out the drive to your pocket. BAD.
You can secure the laptop to a desk so it won't walk off, but thinkpad hard drives have a way of taking the walk.
Those laptops where you first unscrew a HDD bay cover (having to most defintely flip the laptop first), and then under that cover unscrew 2-4 more screws to pull the drive out are MUCH better. That takes so much time that the stunt of quietly stealing the drive is way more difficult to pull off.
Technician will show up in a few hours I would forget the shipping.....