"Cow, King of Pod"
A reader of the site named Dirk happens to be employed at a large Apple Reseller in Europe, works lonely hours, and is surrounded by broken iPods. Add in The Cow, and you get...
We normally store the iPods that we receive for repair (or swap actually) on shelves like this, with our repair forms underneath them...
So if I was going to make a nice setup with the cow I would be getting in to a lot of trouble over it, just podding the iPods back on their appropriate repair forms etc., etc. So I decided to 'innovate our repair processing methods', with a pair of scissors, later replaced by a knife, and some tape. The cow, as usual, abided...
I was the only one in at this time (at least at my department) since it was a bit beyond 21pm the cow probably was the only one abiding and my colleagues don't know about the 'exciting innovation' yet.I decided it would be fun to freak them out by leaving all of the iPods on a huge pile, them not knowing the repair numbers would actually be stuck on the backs of the iPods. This composition is called: 'Pod Noise'...
I played around a bit trying to find a way to emphasize the huge amount of unordered iPods even more. If you put some structure in to chaos the chaos is much more emphasized. This one is called: 'Cow, Scissors, iPod':
While the cow still abides, I decided he would look even better with a little more of a majestic touch to him. This one's: 'Cow, King of Pod':
With cows friendly gaze in my face over my iPod nemesis, I came to realize it might be nicer to try to be a nice guy to my friends at work. So I put the iPods in an more orderly structure with The Cow on top, ready to give my colleagues a nice warm look when they come in in the morning (while I'm still nicely asleep in my bed... dreaming of cows and ipods and my friends freaking out). I call this composition: 'The White One'
At this point cow pointed out to me that it wouldn't be very helpful for my colleagues to be able to see the fronts of all these identical iPods in order to make out which one belongs where. So I retired cow to a nice spot on the wall so that he can oversee all the good work we do on iPods, PowerBooks, our customers and what more. The iPods were turned over to reveal the uninspiring repair numbers. (but I could at least retain the nice 'exciting innovation' pitch to my friends).Take care and keep writing your writes,
Dirk
This was one of those where I asked whether he wanted his real name used, how much detail he wanted in, etc. I got back a whole bunch of amusing things, such as: "If I do lose my job over this it would definitely be the coolest and funniest way ever to lose a job." Our man Dirk has one hell of a positive attitude, and luckily anyone at Apple who wouldn't also think this is cool prolly doesn't read DrunkenBlog.
Very cool, and thanks.
Posted by drunkenbatmanAugust 26, 2005, at 06:40 AM
Comments (18)
Posted by: uv at August 26, 2005 06:57 AM
thankk gawd I have a 3rd-generation iPod - I see only three of them there...
Posted by: aaron at August 26, 2005 07:17 AM
DB, you have a most eclectic (and very odd) readership and I am proud to count myself among them.
For the record, I'm still working on astronaut cow. ;-)
Posted by: Blake Seely at August 26, 2005 11:04 AM
Is anybody else worried (again) about Apple's QA if that many iPods need fixing?!?
Posted by: dirk at August 26, 2005 11:13 AM
for the record:
I've got two iPods myself that never gave me any problems..
It's just that we're one of the very few AASP's who actually take these things in from customers instead of redirecting them to the (horrible) self-service website..
Posted by: brian at August 26, 2005 02:10 PM
Given how many millions of ipods are sold these days, that isn't very many.
Posted by: sundoggy at August 26, 2005 02:12 PM
It's not surprising to see that many iPods in for repair if you think about how many gazillions of these things they're selling. 80%+ is unheard of market share (for HD-based at least) for any product. Between my wife and I, we have three iPods going back to one original 5G, and none of them have had any problems whatsoever. However, there is an inherent problem with mass production and popularity (like a good restaurant that suddenly becomes a wildly popular chain); the quality inevitably goes down.
Posted by: Twist at August 26, 2005 02:59 PM
One thing about iPod repairs you have to keep in mind is how well are people taking care of their iPods. They aren't like an eMac which just sits there and starts smoking one day. iPods get carried around constantly and stuff if bound to happen to them. I have a friend who has been through like four iPods just because he doesn't take care of them.
Posted by: dirk at August 26, 2005 07:54 PM
Posted by: uv at August 26, 2005 06:57 AM
thankk gawd I have a 3rd-generation iPod - I see only three of them there...
I ate the rest.
ehh, I mean:
that's prolly cause most of them are out of warranty nowadays and these are all warranty ipods, not because they are better built than the 4g's..
Posted by: Charles at August 26, 2005 09:37 PM
Some people are too easily amused.
Posted by: digitalturtle at August 26, 2005 10:18 PM
The odd part is that 90+% of these iPods are probably in working order. A firmware update or reset would put most of these back on the streets. I've done enough of them to know. User error is king.
Posted by: Mo at August 27, 2005 03:48 AM
Dirkie, you rule!
Though you did upset us a little, when we got in the next morning..
Hope you get fired over this, so I have an excuse not to extend my contract, hahaha!!
Keep it up, Cows!
Queen of Pod
Posted by: bozotros at August 27, 2005 12:25 PM
ah, so that's how it got scratched...
mind if i rearrange your face?
Posted by: dirk at August 27, 2005 04:29 PM
Posted by: bozotros at August 27, 2005 12:25 PM
ah, so that's how it got scratched...
well, ehmm, all these iPods are actually on their way to apple, to be replaced by brand new unscratched ipods..
but if you seriously think the 75 year old asian lady who opens them up in a factory in Beijing will mind bout the scratches(...) she can always fly in to rearrange my face ;-)
Posted by: Chad at September 6, 2005 11:40 PM
I for one had tried to send mine in to such a nice tech only to get blocked by the all mighty hand of apple.
After much searching i found the friendly guys at www.ipodrepairguide.com
Hope this helps someone else, and maybe saves this poor fella some more tired nights behind his desk.
Chad.
Posted by: Thomas at October 28, 2005 09:58 AM
I just wanted to reply and say that i tried the do-it-yourself ipod repair listed above and it worked out very well for me :) thanks.
Posted by: Brian at January 3, 2006 02:52 PM
i had one iPod with a broken LCD screen and one where my hard drive sounded like a busted vacuum cleaner!
my mom sent them into ipodmods.com and they fixed them both for less than the $255 that apple wanted for just one!!! Oh i gots a new battery for the one to.
Posted by: We refurbish scratched iPods at May 31, 2006 06:41 PM
If you have a working iPod with just a badly scratched front panel check out www.ColorEnvy.com, scratch repair and iPod coloring services. They will take care of those scratches and even offer coloring services to give your iPod that hot custom look.
Actually, there are many benefits to the method Dirk devised. If his "management" doesn't see that, then they're fools. With the old method, if something were to upset the shelf, say a drunken late-night employee, or a clumsily placed iMac, then there would be mayhem. Cheers, Dirk!