36 replies to this topic

[longtimer]

Just wanted to start a fun thread to see what each member Sentance has been.
mine is 35 years and climbing (no way out) I have tried though!

[Pegi]

My business was started in 1978 by my late husband Sam, so the business has worked for 28 years, the business was transferred to me in 1993 so I have owned and operated it myself for 13 years...it is who I am and what I do so plan to do this as long as is possible...

[Budget Appliance Repair]

85-92 working for the MAN!!!

92-06(current) independent AND LOVING IT!!!!! going back working for someone else will be the last thing I do!!!!

going on 21years total now....... (Repairs and sales of used/rebuilt appliance)

[nickfixit]

25 years and counting. Not counting 3 years in the USMC as an Electrical Equipment Repairman.

Semper Fi

[Trying to help]

24 and change out of my 42 years and counting...... slowly counting. Only another 20 or so and I can get out!







[*]10 Years independent servicer (completed 2 year HVAC program at night)  [/*]
[*]5 Years Senior Technician Factory Service [/*]
[*]5 Years Technical Consultant for a Major Appliance Manufacturer  [/*]
[*]5 Years Service Operations Manager for a Major Appliance Manufacturer 
 

 I am Trying to help :rocketman:
[/*]

[AccApp]

In the appliance, heating and cooling service for 3.25 years, on my own for 2.75. I only regret I didn't come across it sooner. Yeah, I'll never work for anyone or in any other business again either. It's just too much fun and very challenging as there is always more to learn.

[Keinokuorma]

12 years on and off as a freelancer, do this, do that...

[Samurai Appliance Repair Man]

My real beginning in learning the ancient martial art of Fixite Do goes back to the Navy in the late 70's where I repaired aircraft navigational appliances (radars) as a snot-nosed teenaged enlisted puke.

After my sentence in the Navy, I went to collitch (courtesy of the Navy) so I could learn how to spell words like "collitch." Afterwards, I took a Dilbert detour and led a life of quiet desperation working in cubicle farms designing industrial refrigeration appliances (ammonia refrigeration systems used in food processing plants).

About 12 years ago, someone shared the Gospel according to St. Applianopoulous with me. I accepted the Lord Fixus as my personal guru and I converted to the Appliantology faith. After my baptism, I was renamed to Samurai Appliance Repair Man; the old me is dead, all things are made new in Fixus! My new faith has informed my particular style of Fixite Do ever since. Amen.

[hvacdrd]

I changed a belt on mom's WP washer when I was 15 or 16 and thought this would be a crappy way to make a living. So I went to college to study math & statistics...yawn. After a few years I realized fixing problems on paper wasn't very fun so I joined the military and did what every kid dreamed of...Digging in the dirt on dozers, graders, and front-end loaders.

Luckily I was only in the National Guard & resumed normal life after 6 months, but I had to decide what I was gonna be when I grew up. Being 20 I figured it was time. So back to college for heating & cooling for 2 years. After I graduated, I went into the field doing commercial & industrial hvac service work where I sharpened my skills repairing things I had never seen or heard about in school.

8 years later I was asked to do "residential work and maybe some appliance work" - could I shame myself by stepping down??? The price was right and here I am 11 years later doing the same thing, repairing things I have never seen. A brief stint in management around 2001 confirmed that I should be in the field not the office. Who would've thought changing a belt on a WP washer would be so much fun...

[jb8103]

I've been doing contract machine design for the last fifteen years. But now, I'm thoroughly sick and tired of the office scene, and it's all going to Asia anyway. It's time to convert to Appliantology...though I hate to think what my new name will be.

[stumpowitz]

4 1/2 years with Maytag, now with the new company, I just hope to make it to 5.

[jahjahbinks]

OH WELL 26 years and counting another 12 to go 55 and out i have have too many friends drop dead on the job (in the trucks) and others retire and have no life left and they to dropped dead less then 1 year after retiring

[bigger hammer]

man do i feel like the bottom of the totem pole.....i just hatched out of the egg in '77

got out of high school, worked at a  coffee shop to make travelling money and when i got back did a one year trade course in appliance and vending machine repair at a community college.

got hired in 2000 as shop monkey and then six months as ride along so i guess 5 going onto 6yrs as a tech. the vending machine part of the course made it a really easy transition into coin-op laundry (not that they are rocket surgery or brain science )

[Jedi Appliance Guy]

I was but a young skull full of mush at the tender age of 17, back in the early eighties, when I got that job at Sam & Bea Amira Services.  They offered A/C, Appliance, minor Plumbing and Electrical service contracts.  I pulled and deliverd parts to the techs vans at night while they were parked at their homes.

It was there I met the Jedi Masters who showed me the ways of the Force.  This is as good a place as any to thank these men who took me under their collective wing and taught me the skills that have served well for over 25 years now.  Bill H. Bob Tracy, Joe H. Mike B, Ted and a special thanks to the Jedi Master Ken Bodine, who did his best to answer my constant questions for the nine months I rode along with him.  While we were working on jobs together he would look at me and say "keep it clean"  and we would do Nice work. 

I had my own van and was running calls when I was 18. I left the trade once for a few years.  Went to school. got this piece of paper says I know how to work on computers but I was miserable.  When I put that 1st temp selector switch in a whirlpool dryer after being away for those years it felt like coming home.

 

[Kiwi-nadian]

9 yrs ago, at the tender age of 23, with a wife and 2 children, I started as an apprentice service tech in a small shop in a small town in NZ. Basically cleaning trade-in's, making cups of tea, delivering and installing, part-time salesperson......... oh and when there was time, learning to repair appliances.

After 18 mths, I was a registered electrical service technician, able to work on everything from toasters, to 3 phase irrigation pump motors and starters.

I stayed with that company another 6 months (Boss was a nice guy, but didn't think he had to spend money to keep staff), in that time we were expecting baby #3.

We moved to the other side of the island, and for 6 yrs I did in-home service in a large farming area, repairing everything from toasters to 3 phase irrigation pump motors and starters.

Also, in that time #3 eventually hatched into a beautiful little girl..........and 18 mths after that, the family was blessed with #4 ( latex make me feel nauseous;))

Then we moved to Canada in March last year, with the help of this site and its members, to whom I am eternally grateful. Now working as a contractor for a high-end service company in Vancouver and loving it.

This is an awesome job, and I feel privileged to be a part of 2 groups, the Priority family, and the Samurai family, that take this job as seriously as I do.:clapping:

[ratherbfishin]

since 1980,  long time with many changes

[That Guy]

I started out as a farmboy or ranch hand, never could figure out what we were doing. We had cattle and some farmland, but not much of either. We always fixed all of our own stuff. I grew up crazy about electricity and machines in general. I used to take all my toys apart. My parents put a stop to that, they said that I could only take them apart after they broke. So I played with them till they broke, then took em' apart. By the time I was 13, I was working on TVs and had fixed my first appliance when I was 14. About that time I did my first picture tube swap. I used to tell my dad that I wanted to be a TV repairman. he didn't find that amusing.

I assembled a tube tester when I was 15, built my own wired remote control for my TV, a 1958 Zenith 22 inch. It featured a volume control and a headphone jack so I could watch TV at night, when my parents were asleep. I graduated from High School in 1977.

I worked for my mom and dad until my dad died when he was 56. I took care of the place and my mom until 1988. Those were not good years to be in the kind of business we were in. We sold out and moved to town. I went to tech school to learn electronics, but I chose the wrong tech school. After a year of fixing the Lab equipment and wondering how my teachers got their jobs, I decided to get a job and quit wasting money.

I started working for a small business that did HVAC, commercial refrigeration, and appliances. It was named after a nice guy named Jack. That was 1990. I had a whole two weeks of instruction in appliance repair, before they turned me loose on the general public. I was pretty green. Luckily I have always been able to read a set of instructions or a wiring diagram and be able to figure it out from there. I learned fast and worked slow. Well, not that slow. I like to do things once and get it right the first time. I worked on just about everything, from simple appliances to commercial ovens and cookers to installing furnaces and fabricating the ductwork for them. Not to mention my least favorite, commercial refrigeration.

Then about 1996 Jack began thinking about dropping appliances. He never really liked them and they were the weakest part of his business. Everything thing else made lots of money, appliances were the weak link in his money making chain. I talked him out of it, but the very next year he was back to wanting to get rid of them again. He made me an offer. Start my own business or move over into funace and AC installs full time. I foolishly thought that being my own boss again would be great.

 So in 1997 I started my own business. Things were great for the first couple of years. I worked 6 days a week. I don't know how many hours a week, but a lot. Then came tax time and I would find that I was just breaking even. So I worked even harder. Tax time comes again and I'm still just breaking even. Now I'm kind of burnt and frustrated. The fourth year I didn't work nearly as hard, guess what? Same result. It doesn't seem to matter what I do. If I make more money something shows up and eats up the money. Unexpected expenses, medical bills, car repairs, you name it.

Now looking into the future, looking at the trends in appliances, and customers general cheapness. Looking at the general disrespect that the companies have for appliance repair people. The future doesn't look very bright. I work for people all the time that make way more money than me, have half my IQ, and treat me like the village idiot or some kind of criminal. They have a $40,000 SUV, a boat, and a giant camper in their driveway. But when I tell them its going to cost $150 to replace their motor on their washer. They say, "I'll just buy a new one." When I present them with a bill for my labor for checking their appliance, they practically have a cow.

 Its kind of upsetting to have to put up with all the retards in the world (at least that's how it feels sometimes). Sure all my customers aren't retards. Infact 90% of them are great people and that's what really makes up for all the short comings of this job. The other 10% I'd like to smack in the head with a rock. JK

I'm thinking about trying out for the New Lonely Maytag Repairman. Only if I get the job, it will be the Bad Tempered, Jaded Maytag Repairman who prefers Whirlpool.

[al57king]

I started off actually repairing Gas stoves, heaters, everything gas, in Midtown Manhattan New  York.  I did this for about a year before I took a "better paying" job, where I picked up washers, dryers, a/c (window shakers) dishwashers, compactors, garbage disposal's,  instant hots. We were factory service for Kitchen Aid, Thermador, Jenn Air, Speed Queen, Fedders, Tappan, and a few others I don't even remember. I do remember running 12 to 15 calls on a daily basis. I did this diligently and always wanting to know everything on everything. I became their go to Tech cause of all the knowledge I acquired. The only thing I didn't acquire was a larger pay check to go with the experience I now had.

I finally said enough, and started my own business in Queens New York in 1986 thru 1991 and it was the best thing I ever did. This business will never get you rich, but you can make a damn good living! Moved down to Florida in 1991 with 6 kids in tow and worked for the Gas company as a A gas man for 2 years till I knew the territory well enough to start my business down here. Need less to say, still here, still got my head under something or behind something, and learning more and more. The only thing I do different down here, is selling reconditioned appliances as well as service. Works out pretty good.

AL CHEAPO'S APPLIANCE

[ZooKeeper]

Ten years here; sales, service, delivery, management, parts...jack of all trades, master of none.

I'm actually leaving all of this fun and excitement in spring '08 to pursue a career in the arts.

Wish me luck!

 

[Scottthewolf]

15 years, worked for Frigidaire Factory Service, Montgomery Ward,  Sears, Maytag Factory Service, now in a partnership with a family owned Sales and Service Appliance store and loving it. At least now I know this place won't close and there's no number crunching managers telling me I need to get at least 6 or more completed calls a day with no overtime.