My first day as an Apple Technician.

Today was the first day I could experience my job. Yesterday my store manager asked me if I was interested in helping out the guys at the head office. At the moment they are missing two colleagues. One of them has found other work, I will be replacing him permanently soon. An other employee at the head office couldn’t work much this week. So why not. It would be a nice opportunity to check everything out and get used to my new desk which will be mine within a couple of weeks.I start earlier. My train leaves at 7:22 AM and since I like big breakfasts and checking my email and daily links my day starts while it’s still dark. Around 8:10 AM I arrive at work and the first thing to do is find the coffee machine. Though I always drink coffee in the morning when I get up I still need an other cup to become productive. While drinking my coffee I could match the faces with names I’ve been talking with on the telephone.The day started highly tech. Bas, my supervisor pointed out an Apple PowerMac G5 2.0 Dual Core of which the Power Supply was dead. Since the PowerMac has three to four different kind of screws and they vary in length it was a bit sketchy and difficult to work at a fast tempo. But still, taking out the motherboard, all connectors, Power Supply Unit, loads of screws and fans and putting it all back took me two hours without practically any help. So yes, even after one year being away from fixing normal desktop computer I still have the skills.After a short break it was time to disassemble a Macbook 1.83. I’ve never disassembled a notebook in my life, especially no Apple type. Taking one apart is much easier actually only you have to be very careful and get the feeling. But for the first time it also went very well. But… I still managed to brake something. The top case of the macbooks (which also contains the track pad and keyboard) is connected to the Main Logic Board via a small and fragile cable. Yes, I broke that connector. No worries though, it will be fixed tomorrow by replacing the top case.Bas and Johan (an other Apple Certified Technician) decided to work over. The workload at the head office is very huge. Since I’ll be their colleague withing some weeks and I was enjoying the whole day I automatically wanted to help out too. So after having dinner at the local cafeteria we drove back and got busy.Having to deal with some paperwork I went berserk on that. After that it was time again to repair another Macbook. While the Macbook was fixing itself (software), I diagnosed / analyzed an iMac and arranged replacement parts to be ordered.I enjoyed the day tremendously. Being always interested in hardware, software and troubleshooting this is just the job for me. After four years of experience with desktop computers I decided I wanted to continue in the same lane until I am going to start my new study. Upcoming Friday I’m going back again since they still will be low on people. In Utrecht, they are still looking for someone to replace my tasks, salesman and technical service stuff handler. In Utrecht the technical handling is no big deal. Fixing iPod’s and retuning dead keyboards.