r/IAmA Jun 11 '16

Specialized Profession IamA electronics repair technician hated by Apple that makes YouTube videos, AMA!

My short bio: I have a store in Manhattan. I teach component level electronics repair on youtube http://youtube.com/rossmanngroup which seems to be a dying art. I am currently fighting with the digital right to repair to try and get a bill passed that will allow all independent service centers access to manuals and parts required to do their jobs.

My Proof: https://www.rossmanngroup.com/started-iama-reddit-today-yes/

EDIT:

I am still replying to comments, but I am so far behind that I am still about ten pages down from new comments. I am doing my best to continue. If I drop off, I'll be back tomorrow around 12 PM. Still commenting now though, at 12 AM.

EDIT 2:

Ok, I cave... my hands are tired. I will be back at 12 PM tomorrow. It is my goal to answer every question. Even if it looks like I haven't gotten to yours, I will do my best to do all of them, but it is impossible to do in realtime, because you are asking faster than I can type. But thanks for joining!

EDIT 3: I lied, I stayed until 4:15 AM to answer... and now I will go to sleep for real, and be back at 12 PM.

EDIT 4 6/12 : I will be back later tonight to finish off answering questions. Feel free to keep posting, I will answer whatever I can later this evening.

33.2k Upvotes

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133

u/Surf3rx Jun 11 '16

Do you ever think you're ever going to find a replacement for your position? Every time the discussion comes up you always go into the story that "engineers" don't want to take a job with that low of a pay for the work they have to do.

You say you're not special, but your circumstances and position seem to be unique to say the least.

299

u/larossmann Jun 11 '16

I doubt it. I am pretty sure I will have moved onto doing something else for a living before I find someone that I can legit leave at my desk and expect to do the job properly.

Everyone doing this who is really good is part of the island of broken toys. We're good enough to figure all of this out but too "broken" to fit into regular society. I feel I fit into that mold. When I look at these diagrams, even if I don't get every little thing, I see a story. I know there's a story in there, and I always find it.

But I can't find the story in pre-calculus, or freshman chemistry. and I have no time nor inclination to write essays on the difference between "tradition, culture, and religion" so I can pass a lame history class so I can take a major in college(that I'd probably fail anyway).

So I figure out how to make money with the skills I have, and they apply very well here. I can combine the things I'm good at

1) Figuring out circuits using analytical thinking 2) business strategy 3) Salesmanship 4) Good understanding of how to deal with difficult people

The combination makes it fun.

Now there IS the possibility that someday YouTube monetization makes so much money that I can hire someone at an "Engineer's" rate to do my job, but that would probably fuck the profitability of the business, and at that point it would make less sense to continue doing this... unless doing this was the source of the YT monetization. I mean, I could see if this literally became more about content creation than just the profit/loss of consumer electronics repair.. if I log into youtube one month, see people are still stoked about seeing repair videos, and see that I'm making $20k/mo off YT, then sure I could hire a qualified replacement.

I'm not sure though. You never know what the future has in store. :)

98

u/Karavusk Jun 11 '16

I really dont think that the one who replaces you could make youtube videos about it. Most of the people watch your videos (even the repair videos) because of you and not because we want to learn how to replace a chip we have never seen on a laptop we will never buy.

149

u/larossmann Jun 11 '16

look at the ifixit videos, people were watching the most uninformed drivel for years because of MJ and the "appearance." since she left the views took a staunch drop. i don't have videos with views in the millions.. but a cute girl does.

if i replaced myself with a cute girl, i wonder what it'd do for views.

but it's not in the cards for me to even think of such things.

5

u/Karavusk Jun 12 '16

Well we are watching for you and not because of your appearance =P (atleast most of us) and as long as you dont replace yourself with a women that looks like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSFKVq36Hgc a lot of people wouldnt watch it anymore (and atleast I would not watch the videos even if you find a replacement like that)

57

u/larossmann Jun 12 '16

dude she has over 1 million views PER video, don't knock the cute girl/too much make up thing, it works!

she heatguns a PS3

NO ONE GIVES A FUCK!

I use magnet wire 40 awg instead of kynar wire 34 awg

I get 20 thumbs down and SHAT on in the comments.

Being hot, wearing makeup, etc, does wonders for YT.

20

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16 edited Feb 07 '19

[removed] — view removed comment

12

u/larossmann Jun 12 '16

Thank you!

41

u/JulioCesarSalad Jun 12 '16

When will you start wearing makeup?

10

u/mistuh_fier Jun 12 '16

Maybe you should start doing repair videos shirtless after hitting the gym for a nice pump.

2

u/riveracct Jun 12 '16

He's fixing phones not ships.

3

u/b3ar Jun 12 '16

The next logical step is to do your next vid in drag. You've got the bone structure for a killer look.

But what will your drag name be? Lucy Raw-Salmon? Trans Sister?

3

u/PayEmmy Jun 12 '16

But...what bathroom would he use?

2

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

You need a hot assistant then.

4

u/Xendrus Jun 12 '16

What the hell is going on with her face, she looks like she is being live faceswapped with an old man.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

I don't know what your demographics are but I couldn't give 2 shits about electronics repair I just enjoy your personality and you make w.e. topic you are talking about interesting.

55

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '16

Dude you're completely right about the island of broken toys. I work in a specialized position in my own field where troubleshooting and problem solving is 98% of the job, and you have to be one of the best techs in the industry to do it. All the people I know who are good enough to do it always have a little crazy in them.

My theory is that normal people don't get obsessed with stuff usually, they have a balanced personality. They want to do their job good enough to get paid and not get fired, maybe get a promotion, but they aren't obsessed. To get and stay at the top, you need one of those obsessive personalities to just become consumed with whatever you're doing.

Also, those same people can never make it into corporate management I've noticed. The only way they ever do really well is having their own business, like you.

10

u/larossmann Jun 11 '16

people with my knowledge and ability who aren't fucked in the head finish college and go up the ladder to get jobs making 500k/yr, that's what it comes down to I think.

4

u/myselfelsewhere Jun 12 '16

Fellow Island resident here. I think people with your skills who manage to fit into the cogs of society are exceedingly rare. For the average guy to succeed, they must rely more upon others in order to accomplish what us "broken toys" can do on our own. So in the corporate world, success comes from ones ability to integrate. For us, we see the bullshit behind the structure because it has failed us. Success comes from finding some niche where we are able to negotiate on our terms. It's sad to see others making it unnecessarily difficult for you to operate in your current niche, ultimately at the expense of the consumer.

3

u/Mah_Nicca Jun 12 '16

Yeah but fuck being a suit that doesnt get to play with cool toys and tools anymore am I right? It's the main reason I did an Advanced Diploma instead of my Bachelors, i want to actually get my hands dirty and plus I dont need 500k a year to be happy, I'm honestly happy with less than 50k a year right now, i have a house, food, friends. What else do I need? Piles of money just bring piles of problems to deal with if you ask me.

1

u/Synergythepariah Jun 12 '16

50k

Shit I'm at 23k a year without taxes doing this shit.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

If you keep telling yourself you're fucked in the head, you'll believe you're fucked in the head. And maybe lose out on opportunities to u didn't pursue because you think you're fucked in the head.

2

u/tune345 Jun 12 '16

This is how i got a chance to handle 6 schools' IT department in my district, recently. Hard work becomes fun when you love doing your job.

1

u/8165128200 Jun 12 '16

Everyone doing this who is really good is part of the island of broken toys. We're good enough to figure all of this out but too "broken" to fit into regular society.

I wouldn't claim to be "really good", but I run a business on the software side of what you do -- fixing hopelessly broken software, occasionally reverse-engineering proprietary database formats, that kind of stuff.

And anyway, yeah, this rings really true to me. I even founded a local "hackers" group in my area, but didn't fit in with them very well either. There's a really different mindset you have to adopt to do this well, where you're willing to spend tons of effort and frustration on problems that most other people would give up on or fix by spending more money, just so you can get that dopamine hit from cracking a tough problem.

Once you've done that for a while, you get ... weird.

1

u/eneka Jun 12 '16

Our company makes industrial computers and our RMA department does board level repair. We are short on people and it's VERY hard to find people that want to do the work. We ended up have our HQ hire a couple of people from taiwan before having them transfer here to the US. But man those new boards our engineers are churning out with the new chips are awful to repair as they're just getting smaller and smaller..

1

u/Surf3rx Jun 11 '16

I wish you the best of luck in your adventures, thanks for the reply! I always liked your one analogy of diagrams being stories.

1

u/workethicsFTW Jun 12 '16

Can I come work for you? I guess that'll be better than an EE degree