How do they do that? Build stuff that automatically fucks up three seconds after the warranty expires? It’s got to be a firmware thing on a little chip inside whatever it is that is about to fly apart on you - slicing off one of your ears in the process.
Way, way, way back before the war I was given a Black & Decker drill for my 21st birthday. It had a circular saw attachment and a rubber thing you could put sanding discs on and all sorts of stuff like that. I’ve since lost the saw bits but the drill itself is still going. The paint’s worn off, it’s got dings all over and every crevice is clogged with the dust of countless DIY projects most of which ended in failure, but the drill whines on. My kids borrow it whenever they have a job too tough for the cordless, plastic food mixers they call their drills. I bought a couple of those battery drill things when they were 50 cents a dozen at Bunnings but I just use them as screwdrivers. It’s better than trying to find one of the old prehistoric screwdrivers in my toolbox because my toolbox is a deadly mess. It’s one of those huge plastic bins and is full of jingly metal bits that don’t look like any tools I’ve ever bought. To find something, you have to rake your hand through this tangle of lethal weapons and your hand comes back out minced with needle sharp panel pins rammed under every fingernail.
The point is the old drill is still alive after 45 years of abuse. So why is modern stuff so crap? Possibly because my Black & Decker cost a weeks wages back then - would we spend a weeks wages on a drill now? Probably not.
Then there is my air conditioning unit. I spent a weeks wages on that right enough but it’s stuffed. And it was still six months inside its warranty so I phoned the Good Guys all politely indignant and asked them to arrange for it to be fixed only to find that the firm that made the air con unit has gone into voluntary liquidation. The upshot was that the Good Guys told me to piss off. It turns out the Good Guys didn’t really mean it when they told me it had a 5 year warranty because I should have had an extended warranty which is the real warranty not like the written warranty that the Good Guys gave me which was only a Good Guys pretend warranty. That’s the Good Guys.
I did manage to get the unit fixed (at a price more than half the cost of the entire system) but I must remember to ask next time I buy something if there is a real warranty or a Good Guys warranty on whatever piece of shit I’m being served up with. Remember the Good Guys – cunts!
But all this is as nothing compared to the real reason (that’s a real reason, not a Good Guys reason) for this outburst of mine. Our home was built only five years ago and – wait for it – one of our taps is leaking! No, no, don’t scoff. I don’t mean the tap is leaking from a joint or a seal or anything as obvious as that, the tap is leaking through its body! Halfway along the spout that hangs over the sink several pinholes have developed and when I turn the tap on it sprays a fine mist all over me like the watering system you’d use in a hot house for your rare orchid collection. The fucking spout has worn out! In five years! It would take a constantly flowing river the best part of a century to wear away 2 millimetres of stone how the fuck can a steel tap get worn away by water that only flows a dozen times a day and that at a pressure that can’t wash a spider down the plughole. The bloody thing was swimming back up the stream of water and almost reached the tap! I fucking hate spiders.
So that’s my tap. I refuse to get a new one. I’ll stick a plaster on it. 2mm of steel worn away in five years – how do the manufacturers do it?
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Your tap hasn't worn away, it's a symptom of a greater pervading evil that is copious on our retialer shelves in almost every facet of that trade ; "made in china"
ReplyDeleteThe stuff that comes from the fastest growing industrialised country on earth is for want of a better word, Shit!
What this government fails to tell you as you pay your fair share of taxes in the hope that they will spend it wisely is that it is not just the labour quantity of chinese made goods that makes them so cheap it is also greatly reduced quality by means of substitution of quality ingredients for those that will do the job, just.
Unfortunately that m,eans that about 99% of what you buy in retail hardware stores like Bunnings is shit because it is made in china.
It is absolutely false economy, to yourself and to the resources of this planet to participate in the buy cheap, throw away and buy again retail strategy that sees big chain stores racking up record profits year aftewr year for their shareholders when you can buy quality products once that last a lifetime ; you've used less resources, created less pollution, and contributed less to the growing waste problem.
Think about it, buying quality is expensive, but it is also an investment in our future.
Hi Anon at 8:28,
ReplyDeleteYou're absolutely right of course. In fact I think I said pretty much the same myself in an old post that got deleted. If I can find a draft I'll re-post it with an update.