Expensive repair bill

[farmrbrown]

Most of us have heard a version of this story, but when my wife saw this on f-book today, she thought of me and sent it to me, lol.

Don’t forget about the past sacrifices
A giant ship's engine broke down and no one could repair it, so they hired a Mechanical Engineer with over 30 years of experience.
He inspected the engine very carefully, from top to bottom. After seeing everything, the engineer unloaded his bag and pulled out a small hammer.
He knocked something gently. Soon, the engine came to life again. The engine has been fixed!
A week later the engineer mentioned to the ship owner that the total cost of repairing the giant ship was $20,000.
"What?!" said the owner.
"You did almost nothing. Give us a detailed bill."
The answer is simple:
Tap with a hammer: $2
Know where to knock and how much to knock: $19,998
The importance of appreciating one's expertise and experience...because those are the results of struggles, experiments and even tears.
If I do a job in 30 minutes it's because I spent 20 years learning how to do that in 30 minutes. You owe me for the years, not the minutes.
Author Unknown

[fixitguy]

Just like a 2 inch weld that takes 30 seconds, and you charge the guy $25 bucks.
He said....but it took you literally 30 seconds to weld.

Yep, a $2000 welder, $250 helmet, $200 gas bottle, consumables ,and insurance for the building and a mortgage payment.

Spend $2000 on a welder and do it yourself!

[joebill]

Then on the other hand......

My first plasma cutter was a thermal dynamics, and one day it simply quit, and I had lost the manual in a move, so I just dropped it off at a repair center after taking a look under the hood and finding a maze I did not want to traverse at tjhe time. $150 later it was working again, guy claimed he had repaired a circuit card. Two weeks later it died again, and I did not believe the first guy's story, so I called the national service center, and THAT guy asked me if I had checked the fuses....sure enough, blown glass fuse, when I found it.

I tried to call the first guy and cuss him out over the lie, but he was already out of business...

I used to buy up a lot of non-functional equipment and fix it and resell, but I did not lie to either buyer or seller. To me, the liar deserves to go out of business.....Joe

[Ozarks Tom]

Then there's the other side of the story.

I was driving my 2 year old Chevy up Harry Hines Blvd in Dallas when it stopped shifting properly. I'd give it some gas and it would downshift. Not knowing any mechanics in the area, I notice Norton's Auto across the road and pulled in. Told Jimmy Norton what it was doing, and he crawled under it, came up with a short piece of rubber tubing, came back, crawled back under, and said "it should be fine". Okay......what do I owe you? Nothing, just took a couple minutes.

He didn't know, but at the time I had three personal vehicles, two company cars, and three company trucks. Yep, we drove the extra 15 miles across Dallas to give him all our work.  He could have sold me a rebuild on the transmission, and I'd have never known all it needed was a 2" vacuum hose.