A talk with my dad made me rethink the 'fix it fast' mindset

I was working on a stubborn boot loop for a client's custom gaming rig, my third hour on it. My dad, a retired mechanic, watched me and said, 'You know, in my shop, the fastest fix was often the one you did right the first time, even if it took longer to find.' He told me about a car that kept coming back for the same noise until he spent a whole afternoon tracing it to a fifty cent bushing, not the big part everyone assumed. It hit different because I realized I was just swapping parts, hoping for a quick win, instead of doing the slow, sure work of real diagnosis. That rig had a failing power supply rail I'd skipped testing. I spent two more hours and found it. Do you think there's too much pressure in our field to turn things around quickly, even if it means missing the root cause? How do you balance speed with doing a complete job?

3 comments

3 Comments

samk7716d ago

Yeah that "fastest fix" line is so true, it's like skipping the instructions to save time and just making it worse lol.

aaron_mitchell16d ago

Honestly I've seen the opposite work out plenty of times. Last week my router was acting up and the quick reset guide online fixed it in two minutes. Sometimes the official steps are overkill for a simple problem. Skipping to the fast fix can be the right call if you know what you're doing. It really depends on the situation.

zarat3816d ago

Remember when my buddy wasted a week swapping ram before checking the motherboard standoffs?