G53 3 time RMA

[cl-scott]

~~ cheers ~~ The cl-Scott Plan .. shouldn't have to babysit 'pros'.
Sign the work .. those not meeting standards consistantly .. pink slip.

UnEmployment is around 11% in California. Somebody would love that job and do it.c.

Were it that simple, but it's expensive and time consuming to both fire someone and then hire someone new. There's unemployment you have to pay for the fired employee, then all the various fees associated with hiring someone, and the time you have to spend sifting through applications, conducting interviews, training... That can take the better part of a month, if not longer, meanwhile you're down one (or more) repair techs. Not to mention, if that person (or persons) goes to work for one of your competitors, now your competitor is effectively getting someone with some skills that were developed on your dime. If you can at all salvage the situation, it's considerably cheaper to do so.

So it's generally a far preferable solution, for all involved, to try and figure out what is the source of the problem, then go from there. Maybe it is there's one or two people who just aren't hacking it, but there may be plenty of other reasons. Where I worked before, the management gave a whole new meaning to cheap. One of the parts room people had a second job as the night manager at a hotel, and she'd pilfer pens because we couldn't even get simple office supplies like that without the company CEO signing off on it. Pens were worth their weight in gold, and I went out of my way to create a system where I could fill out all the paperwork on my workstation and then print it off rather than constantly be stealing other people's pens, and having them steal them back. I know times are tough, and you can't just go buying whatever people want, but equipment was literally falling apart and the CEO refused to replace it, we couldn't get basic office supplies needed to do our jobs, and what needed to happen was for the top management to loosen the purse strings a little.

Whether or not that's what's needed at the repair center mentioned in this thread I don't know, but if someone in Asus management wants to task me with going in there and knocking a few heads around to get things going in the right direction again, I'd relish the opportunity.

[cl-scott]

I think it would be a good idea for @cl-scott to check out the Milpitas Service Center. It could help ASUS by getting a fresh view of what's actually happening there. It sounds like there is definitely some sort of problem.

Looking at the other (repair tech) side, it could be possible the techs are being extremely overworked. If you had to repair more laptops per day than humanly possible, and you find out the motherboard you just replaced on one turned out to be defective, and it's the second defective motherboard you installed today, and now you're out of that specific motherboard and will fall further behind, and new defective laptops are coming in boatloads every day, it could explain the poor customer service. It'd be hard to love a job like that....

That was my life as a repair tech. I can tell you from experience it is not fun. It also leads to units falling through the cracks. You might set a unit aside for any number of perfectly valid reasons, and then get swamped with new units. By the time you get your head back above water, a couple of weeks to a month may have passed.

So while I suggested it largely tongue-in-cheek, I do actually have experience as a repair tech, and even working in a depot setting. So if someone from the other side of the building wants to come over to Ice Station Zebra (the AC is on all day until 6PM) to give me a promotion, I'll drive on down to Montague and get cracking.

[Gorman]

> Blaming this on "it's just 1 center slipping 1 laptop through the cracks"

We get tons of reports of repair centers acting like this, all over the globe... We get tons of reports of this exact issue, all over the globe...

It's more than just a single localized problem guys, stop fixating on the center.

[chrsplmr]

cl.. it is that easy. Some of the things we have seen here. What justifies them having a job.
There is no unemployment for those that do not do their jobs.

and would have cost far less... by now.
All the Marketing and Proven Top Products will Never overcome the damage of returning
a RMA .. to be kind .. Not complete.

cl- a few more like yourself and Mason sweat'n them .. until there are no more cracks.

[cl-scott]

> Blaming this on "it's just 1 center slipping 1 laptop through the cracks"

We get tons of reports of repair centers acting like this, all over the globe... We get tons of reports of this exact issue, all over the globe...

It's more than just a single localized problem guys, stop fixating on the center.

While a vast and inaccurate oversimplification of the discussion, at the same time... Let's assume everything is exactly as you say, for the sake of argument. Would it not be a step in the right direction to turn things around at even a single repair center?

But really, we were just kind of goofing around. In no way am I seriously expecting to be tasked with going in and implementing sweeping changes at that location.

[cl-scott]

cl.. it is that easy. Some of the things we have seen here. What justifies them having a job.
There is no unemployment for those that do not do their jobs.

and would have cost far less... by now.
All the Marketing and Proven Top Products will Never overcome the damage of returning
a RMA .. to be kind .. Not complete.

cl- a few more like yourself and Mason sweat'n them .. until there are no more cracks.

I'm not sure you could really make that case, since you're talking theoreticals. It's kind of like how the MPAA/RIAA/UbiSoft equate one illegally downloaded copy of something as one lost sale. The mental leap needed to get from here to there is deceptively large.

[cl-scott]

cl.. it is that easy. Some of the things we have seen here. What justifies them having a job.
There is no unemployment for those that do not do their jobs.

and would have cost far less... by now.
All the Marketing and Proven Top Products will Never overcome the damage of returning
a RMA .. to be kind .. Not complete.

cl- a few more like yourself and Mason sweat'n them .. until there are no more cracks.

I'm not sure you could really make that case, since you're talking theoreticals. It's kind of like how the MPAA/RIAA/UbiSoft equate one illegally downloaded copy of something as one lost sale. The mental leap needed to get from here to there is deceptively large.

[chrsplmr]

Apologies OP ... keep us posted.

Exactly. That Value was 'Stolen' .. by the Pirate.
This ... squandering of brand equity by apathy.

We all know and love this equipment.
We have pride of ownership.

Recently I saw a thread similar to this where the OP carefully
boxed and shipped the unit. (pics)
Whoever shipped that back as complete (pics).. would not be working
for me in the morning...no excuses, gone.
(if true. but i have no reason to doubt that op).

Far too many have worked far too hard to get 'us' here to
allow this to continue to continue .. find the problem and
like a spammer ... delete.c.

[Gorman]

While a vast and inaccurate oversimplification of the discussion, at the same time... Let's assume everything is exactly as you say, for the sake of argument. Would it not be a step in the right direction to turn things around at even a single repair center?

Fixing things at a single repair center helps maybe at best 0.01% of people. It's an insultingly small step towards a solution. As usual ASUS works so slowly doing the minimum they can, in order to make us run out of warranty before they form a solution.

But really, we were just kind of goofing around. In no way am I seriously expecting to be tasked with going in and implementing sweeping changes at that location.

> Just joking, we won't help
wut.

[cl-scott]

Fixing things at a single repair center helps maybe at best 0.01% of people. It's an insultingly small step towards a solution. As usual ASUS works so slowly doing the minimum they can, in order to make us run out of warranty before they form a solution.

So you would rather nothing be done? I have a funny feeling that if the repair center in question were the one you clearly had a bad experience with, you would have a very different view on the matter.

I can't do anything to change the fact that you had a bad experience getting your system repaired, and being a negative and disruptive presence in discussions like this will not change what has happened either. What it will do is make people far less empathetic to your situation. All I can do is try and make sure that no one else has an experience like yours, and if you ever set down that chip you're carrying on your shoulder, I think you would agree it is a positive change.

> Just joking, we won't help
wut.

More like that's not my responsibility. If someone in the Asus management wanted to put me in charge of handling that sort of thing, I would enjoy the challenge. Granted, that's probably a level of naivete speaking, because there are a number of differences between a person's intentions and certain realities. It being election time here in the states, and my having more than my fill of political ads, stump speeches, and the like... It's really easy for someone to say that if they are elected President they will do this, that, and the other thing... But there are a number of realities of any political office really, at any level, which will make a number of those promises impossible to keep. Just as one example in the US, there's all kinds of talk about how Mitt Romney will tackle the national debt. Well, the way our government is set up, it's Congress that holds the purse strings of the nation, all the President can do is propose changes and hope Congress goes along with it. The same as the Australian PM can't just unilaterally ram legislation through Parliament. His/Her party has to wheel and deal with minority parties to form a coalition if they don't win enough seats, and those parties may very well oppose a lot of the things the PM campaigned on. So if the PM tries to make good on campaign promises, it might mean that parties pull out of the coalition, and things grind to a halt.

A lot of times the realities of the job are very much at odds with the best of intentions and the noblest of ideals.