Hanging up the soldering iron

[km6xz]

That is a good point, after doing it, it becomes much easier for a host of reasons but one of the most important is learning that when envisioning a new project, weighing the negative indicators and how to mitigate them, with the same or higher priority as the imagined upside potential. Outsiders or first timers focus almost entirely on the positive indicators. The positive indicators take care of themselves, the negative factors requires management, creativity and skill to navigate.

I give talks at a popular English club in St Petersburg. Talks and lectures are scheduled with native speakers so the club members, mostly young Russian professionals(more accurately, young attractive females who happen to have professional degrees) get practice with native English. The most popular topics are about small business and starting some new idea they are eager to pursue. One format for which the founder of the club enlists me for is dividing the audience into groups of 5-10 people each and have them discuss a business plan or project and then one group at a time pitch it to me. At first they were really discouraged because almost all their great ideas were judged critically. Off the top of my head, based on years of seeing opportunities in problems and pitfalls in sure things, I shoot dozens of holes in their plans that they never considered but on which the idea's viability depend. Experience teaches that way of seeing things as a balance of positive and negative, but all shades of grey. It is easy to spot opportunities and cautionary indicators after dealing with it for years, even if the fields are totally unrelated.
So, someone who has the balance of a perspective of the close up nasty details of daily business but given distance from it to see the larger picture, like in this case, getting away from the bench and day to day fire suppression, is a great time to see all the opportunities that abound wherever we go, by being away from the isolation of the office/bench. Most, probably 95%(wild ass'd guess) of working people are too close to the tasks immediately in front of them to see all the opportunities within reach.
That was the real benefit of vacations and why paid vacations became a standard practice in the middle of the last century, being away from it generates more ideas and enthusiasm. One of the reasons it appears to most Americans like there is no hope and things just keep getting worse with no resolve is that vacations are shrinking and becoming a luxury that many can't afford. No developed country has less vacation time for workers or owner than the US. It was not that way at all during the explosion of the middle class in the 50s and 60s. The effectiveness of work forces can be seen to have a correlation with time away from the grind.

[Steve Conner]

The effectiveness of work forces can be seem to have a correlation with time away from the grind.

Bravo! I've forwarded a copy to my boss.

[km6xz]

With my shop, techs were eager to use their 30 day vacation but the studio was a problem. Even on days off many of the staff stayed to hang out because it was no only their life but their fun. I had to admonish people to leave, not to come back until they spent time enough time away to recuperate because I needed them fresh and full of energy and at the top of their game. Here in Russia 30 days paid vacation is part of labor law, it is required as a minimum.
Seriously, tell your boss his bottom line in productivity and innovation will be enhanced by more frequent and longer absences. You can probably come up with proof about how projects and assignments came closer to on-time or in advance of time right after vacation than when needing a vacation. There have been studies that showed more patents were issued for innovations that arose closely after vacation or free time than when there was a longer span between them.

[Mark Hammer]

Depends on the organization. As a federal public servant, I find that my work, productivity, and innovation are hampered by vacations. Not so much MINE, but other people's. You can never find the people you need to speak to because somebody somewhere is always on vacation, or catching up with their e-mail when they return. If it was possible to synchronize everyone's vacation, that would be one thing, but sadly the option to siply shut down the entire operation for 2-3 weeks is not available. I am presently being asked to submit my vacation plans from now up to the end of September, so that they can all be coordinated to make sure we always have some strength on duty.

So, not dissing your suggestion. merely noting that it won't work in all circumstances.

[J M Fahey]

Dear Mark, not dissing with yours either, I get your point, but I guess the problem is not the vacation itself, but lack of organization.
Simple Math tells me that 30 days vacation a year mean 8.2% of the available time, or, what is the same, 8.2% non availability of staff.
Round it up to 10% to cover snafus and Murphy's Law, you end up having 90% of your workforce available *always*.
It will not work smoothly on small operations: if in a small metallurgical shop you have 4 lathe or press operators and one is on vacation, you lost 25% .,.. that month .... but have 100% on others when you *should* have somebody vacationing.
At the end of the Year everything balances out.
It does work very well in places with hundreds or more workers/employees (such as Public Service) .
And activity is not the same along the year, you have very busy months and more relaxed ones.
Of course, proper organization asks to concentrate vacations on the weaker months.
Or, as we do here, in Argentina (and most Latin Countries), it's already built-in, dyed in the wool.
Summer months (here December to February) are already considered "slow" months, with February practically dead .. except for "hospitality industry" of course.
It's already custom that during February Law and Courts are in "Feria Judicial" (Court off season) so you can relax, you will *not* be asked to answer demands, appear in Court , or anything else.
Same happens 2 weeks in July (mid Winter for us).
Most Industry , Distributors, Importers, etc. close for the "segunda quincena" , the last 2 weeks of February.
I run out of chipboard and Tolex, so cabinet production suffered.
Whenever I complained about it, everybody told me "are you crazy? go on vacation yourself !! Restart working when everybody's back !!"
So, the World does not come to an end, by a long way.

[Tom Phillips]

Mark Hammer suggested a virtual repair type operation in post #7. It is interesting that a related situation was playing out at http://music-electronics-forum.com/t29222/ in parallel with this discussion .

[Enzo]

I actually appreciate some companies in this industry who have company-wide vacations. The whole place shuts down for two weeks, usually at the end of the year holiday periods. It is predictable, you know in advance, they warn you and specify cutoff dates for order filling and so on. It may be inconvenient when life threatening crisis parts orders arise at exactly that time, but the rest of the year you never get "We can;t process your warranty claim because Myra is on vacation, and she's the only one authorized to do it."


SO Glen from Mars is closing his shop. (I'll wait while the obvious jokes are made....)

Today a fellow brought in an old Pioneer cassette deck. I said I'd look at it since it just sounded like belt slip. I grabbed a cassette from the pile and stuck it in. The cassette? Gwen Mars.


Hey, it was CLOSE.

[Mars Amp Repair]

Hey,
Just got my server & computers up at home. thanx for the good wishes. I'm fairly (perhaps naively) optimistic. As you say about having run your own business & being a self-started...you just hope others realize that, too. At 59, it does concern me a bit...other than those troublesome mirrors I pass from time to time around the house, I feel 40! glen

[Mars Amp Repair]

Schlub indeed! I guess if you've loved 'fixing' things like most of us fools since we were old enough to pull an old radio out of the trash & shock ourselves a few times...we never go away completely! I've talked to a few repair places around town & some seem interested in having a part timer who they can depend on come by...I'll have to see what happens once all the dust settles...thanx, glen

[Mars Amp Repair]

Hey Bruce,
Yeah, we had customers coming in trying to figure out what happened to you...I really had no idea other than you had shut your doors. Glad to hear in a sense that you scaled down & did what you had to in order to keep it going...you're right, the work just dried up & the really fun stuff just started disappearing.

At this stage of the game, I'm not planning on doing repairs in my house at all...funny you mention Tom Boffa as he was the one who bought the entire parts department...let me tell ya, that was a God-Send from the Universe. Lots of really good stuff there & all what you need in this biz & not much crap you would not use.

Yeah I think you're right...we all did do really good work with the idea of lots of PM to keep the stuff running. It was a job at times to keep all my guys in line with that philosophy, but they finally got the message...cut corners & I would know about it. Also I would watch the reworks pretty closely & analyze some of them when necessary to be certain the guys WERE incorporating all the update mods we developed to keep the common issues from occurring in the first place. The 'good guys' have a lot to be proud of in this biz.

I had an Outlook Calendar reminder pop up on my computer this morning & my wife & I really had a laugh over it...it said 'Send in Payroll'...I CERTAINLY do not miss sweating payroll every 2 weeks & praying that folks would come in & pick up enough stuff so we could make it...we would put off sending our mortgage payment before I'd EVER let that happen...I don't imagine my techs will ever completely realize what it takes to run a business....all they knew is there had better be plenty of 12AX7's & 6L6's in stock when they needed them or I would hear 'AW SHIT!' when there weren't ;-]

Oh well I'm rambling now...thanx Bruce...we should keep in touch...glen

[Mars Amp Repair]

Thanx Enzo...
I had to chuckle...while clearing out the shop I found that Turntable stand that I bought from you a few years back...never did use it, as I mentioned a while back the guy here who told me he was interested in having me repair some old Dual 1015 turntables is kinda a...hmmm...not sure how to put it...Umm as William Shatner put it in 'The Voyage Home' when trying to explain Spock the the aquarium gal...'I think he did a little too much L.D.S. in the 60's'...he didn't mean 'Latter Day Saints' either ;-]..

Bruce, you did you ever meet Ron Gold from Gold Sound? You'd know what I'm referring to ;-]

glen

[Sowhat]

I was chatting with folks on another forum about repairs and mods, and it occurred to me that there is a new untapped market out there of "virtual repair": talking people through repairs and/or mods via Skype. Basically repair consulting. So, person contacts you, they pay some sort of prearranged fee via PayPal, and you talk them through the troubleshooting. I'm sure there are all manner of obstacles and catches I haven't thought of yet, but in many instances, the customer probably COULD do the repair/mod themselves...if only there were someon with more knowldge to guide them through it. The only reason they don't get it repaired is that, by the time the item is shipped there and back, and the shop-owner's operating overhead costs are addressed, it's not worth it for the cutomer.

But what if there WAS no shipping, and your repair shop was a desk and a webcam? And what if the customer came away knowing a little more at the end of it? Maybe it would be worth it for them to $35 to repair a $129 amp, or hotrod a Squier/Turser/Rondo guitar if, after the 40min they learned something useful.

I'm not saying a person could necessarily live off the revenue, but it would provide a nice additional revenue stream, keep stuff out of the garbage dump, and shave time off the turnaround so that musicians can have the stuf they want, working well, faster.

I've recently been doing this very thing with great success however, there's a caveat to this. My hey day in musical instrument repair was between 1968 and 1975... yes, I go back a ways. Most of my online customers are old time customers from those days and they know a little about electronics but need some hand holding here and there. We're now spread all over the world but still we keep in touch for old times sake. The amazing thing is that most of us are still playing pretty often and our gear which is also about as old still keeps breaking down. Some of the equipment is so familiar it's like an old friend. I do everything requiring that they have a good multimeter, some snipers and clippers, a good soldering iron and good old tin/lead solder plus some hardware store stuff like lightbulbs and such. I arrange everything so they don't need to use what I have here on my bench which costs thousands of dollars as most of you may well know. I do all the parts ordering for them and usually we get things fixed for pennies on the dollar and in short order. The point here is the familiarity I have with these clients. This makes things go smoothly. I really don't envision putting my online services to be available to anyone... this would inevitably lead to that old nemesis "service liability". Once you pop the hood on things, you are responsible even if you have to eat the entire job and then some. With the service being remote control the liability skyrockets as my control of the situation diminishes. My clients realize full well that the burden is partly on themselves in this type of repair. Thankfully all of them can punch their way out of a wet paper bag. As for this being a "welcome to all" type of affair, I don't see that happening at all... what if they turn out to be an idiot? They still send me little stuff like echorecs, univibes and ancient pedals which are fairly cheap to ship, but biggies like amp heads, combos and speaker cabinets are done by remote control where shipping is prohibitive.

[Mark Hammer]

Thanks for that limited-but-still-hopeful ray of sunshine!!

Much appreciated.

Mark

(BTW, I had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with Carl Sagan in 1972 or 73. Nice guy.)

[Mars Amp Repair]

Well,
I guess the virtual repair help thing could work on simpler stuff like the old Fenders that are so easy to work on...I wonder how it would be to help someone try to troubleshoot some of the weird FET switching issues you run into with the Mesa Boogies.

There is a guy in town that runs a band instrument repair biz/school called CIOMIT (Colorado Institute of Music Instrument Technology). He offers streaming online classes for instrument repair. he makes a pretty good penny doing it, too. He takes a crappy old horn & beats it up then sends it to the student to learn the art of repairing it.

He originally suggested that I get into something like that...I would never have the time to do it while trying to run my old business...but, the idea of the video piece added would greatly improve the possibility of success with a remote repair going on.

glen

[km6xz]

For the New Years holiday in Russia the whole country shuts down(or used to, the foreign chain stores run sales so many in the service sector now work) from the last week of Dec to January 10th. In my office vacations can be taken in any month except mid May to the end of September when all the year's work is focused on. Since there is so little to do in the winter....except for me, from October 1 through mid January is free time, ,paid time but no one has to show up. The younger girls on the office take off to warm climate, Malta or Southern Italy or Greece for a month or so. Some take longer but we need some staffing besides me in the second half of Jan. Work steadily increases into the spring and gets downright hectic through out the summer. So it is possible to get a a full year salary, plus summer bonus and actually be in the office for 6 months of the year. I need the same people to come back in the spring so I don't lay them off. It hurts cash flow in the winter when there is no income but it all works out when a year is taken as a whole. During the summer however we take on 150 purely summer help with licensed guides. They only earn $10 an hour but tips can be substantial so most only want to work all summer and then live in the south or in Turkey on vacation and travel for the rest of the year. A pleasant personable guide can make $50,000 a year and have no living expenses except food(68% of locals live in homes they own free and clear), they have a pretty enjoyable life. When on the job however it is a hard job, being history teacher, art expert, nanny, protector and finder of lost visitors who wander off, director and coordinator of meals and events, and handling a little documentation, and handling any emergency or out of the norm situation. It is like being a 1st grade teacher but with adults who are harder to handle and keep entertained, and for 12 hours or more each day.
So there are lots of job structures in existence and they all work as long as managed well. The key to being happy is finding one or creating one that fits your life style preferences.
Income has little relationship to the difficulty or skill level required to complete the task. What is the most telling factor is rarity of the talent or unique combination of even routine talents in determining compensation. The "talent" or skill is not that which the worker cites but the ones imagined by the client or employer. What the employer of client values its problem to be solved is a good indicator of how much they think the value of having that problem go away is. Working to to a repair to a power supply of a $3M MIR machine, might take the same skill and effort as working on a kid's Peavey amp but there is an order or two in difference in what the payer thinks the repair is worth.