Rant: A customer brought me a toaster that was full of glitter

They said it stopped working after their kid's birthday party... opened it up and a cloud of pink glitter coated my entire workbench. Now I keep a cheap vacuum dedicated to 'pre-inspection cleanup' for any appliance from a house with small children. Anyone else have a weird 'pre-repair' step they had to add?

3 comments

3 Comments

lindaw292mo ago

Honestly, that extra step seems like a waste of time. You're a repair person, you should expect a bit of mess. Opening things up is part of the job description. If you start doing a full cleanup before even looking at the problem, you're just adding unpaid labor to your day. The glitter is annoying, sure, but it's not a biohazard. Just blow it off the bench and get to work. Making a whole special rule for kid stuff is overkill.

wesley8732mo ago

My buddy's shop had to replace a whole motherboard because glitter shorted the pins.

angela_park6d ago

lindaw29 I get what you're saying about not wanting to add unpaid work, but I read something about this a while back about how glitter is basically tiny metal flakes coated in plastic. It can definitely bridge contacts on tight pin headers or under ICs. I saw a post where a guy said he found glitter inside a laptop fan once and it had actually melted onto the bearing. It's not a biohazard but it can be a real pain if you don't catch it before powering something up. Is it really that hard to just give the board a quick once over with compressed air if you see glitter?