[RESOLVED] The Case Of The Failed CDROM

A customer bought a new CDrom from me and said he was quite happy to replace it himself. OK. No problem. 2 days later the said CDrom came back and the customer said it didn't work and wouldn't do anything so I happily replaced it. I quickly tested the cdrom and yes it was dead.
3 hours later a very irate customer came back again saying that one didn't work either and I should get my act together. "Please bring in your machine and I will see if I can find the problem."
On inspection I found his pc had recently had a new fan fitted and guess what!
The extension PSU cable had been forced into the connector THE WRONG WAY ROUND of which the other end was connected to the CD rom.
He therfore recieved a bill for 2 blown up CDROMS and a 3rd cdrom to get his system back up and running. This customer was studying for his A+ certificate. 'GOD HELP US'

not only customers, but manufacturers will assy them the wrong way

Personally myself, would employ someone with an A+ certificate anyway, usually the stuff the study is out of date and if they need to study in the first place than it's not their arena to start with.

It amazes me that so much is blamed on A+, plenty of good techs are also A+ certified (like me, I might add)so it is not right to always generalize that they are all dopes and don't know what they are doing. There are plenty of non-A+ techs out there who also don't know what they are doing, go to an average retail computer store - and I don't mean the small self-run ones, they are usually pretty good - and ask the "techs" some questions, you'll be disgusted...The problem with A+ is the way they allow people who aren't competent to get certified, it should require hours of hands-on or something, like an apprentice.... and that's not just A+ but all certs really (they advertise get a MCSE in 3 mos around here...you think they know what they are doing?), HOWEVER being certified does not mean that you DON'T know what you're doing...and I know excellent techs (certified or not)who occasionally do some dopey thing like that just from being distracted or over-worked... I'm sure none of you non-A+ techs EVER make a mistake and you've known everything about pcs since the day you were born. It seems to me that the best techs have learned what they know BECAUSE of their mistakes...trial and error that's what this field is all about, and there is something new to learn every day otherwise you'd be outdated by next week at the rate things are going..I was a tech long before I was A+ cert, what - I'm a moron now because I got the A+?
Everyone rags on A+ but so far no ones come out with anything else more "respectable" so...
not trying to PO anyone, just my 2 cents...
=)




[This message has been edited by JeanneD (edited April 15, 1999).]