- You are here:
- Home »
- Blog »
- Manage Your Computer Business »
- How Much Is Your Time Worth?
How Much Is Your Time Worth?
A few days ago a hard drive in one of my clients servers showed up as failing. Typically, all the server management is done remotely by another company and I manage the workstations locally. However, since the hard drive was failing mechanically I was asked to do the physical task of removing it and replacing it with a new one. Luckily, the server was in a RAID 1 setup so there was no downtime while removing the failing hard drive.
This server was only a few months old so the hard drive is well within its warranty. On the clients behalf, I found out where the server came from (it was a custom build) and the store owner agreed to swap the failed hard drive.
In order to get the replacement hard drive, they said all I had to do was goto the supplier which was about 15 minutes from my clients location, return the dead hard drive and get it swapped with the new one. I agreed to this because I wanted to get the hard drive replaced quickly.
I went ahead and physically removed the hard drive, destroyed the data using Dariks Boot & Nuke and while I was doing this the store owner called again and told me that the supplier now says that it must be her that does the swap with them and it cannot be me. So, we both agree on a time to meet down at the suppliers.
So, I go down to the suppliers to meet her there and quickly pick up the hard drive but she says that its going to take 4 hours for them to process the return. This was pretty annoying but I did have work to do in the area that should fill 4 hours or so.
Four hours later I return to the suppliers and the hard drive is still not ready but they said it wont be much longer. I start talking to the store owner to kill some time and help keep my finger on the pulse of the computer repair world and found out that she came from a town outside of my city that is a 3 hour drive from here. I asked whether she had any other work down this way today and she said no, she was there only for the hard drive.
The supplier was still taking longer than expected and she complained that she had to pass on some client work in order to be here.
I didnt entirely believe this, why would you drive a 6 hour round trip, pass on client work for a 500gb SATA hard drive?
After a while she goes inside the suppliers building to see what is happening so I talk to her husband who is part of their computer business. He also mentions that it was a 6 hour round trip, they had to pass up client work to be here and they are only in town to return the hard drive.
I was amazed. A 500GB Seagate SATA hard drive could be worth no more than $60 USD. They would have spent $30-40 in petrol for the round trip and could have earned hundreds of dollars by supporting their clients that day. Once we did finally get the hard drive they hopped in their car and left. So they didnt even pick up additional stock to make it worth their while.
I was trying to figure out why they would have done this but the only thing I could think of is they must have believed that they were saving some money because the supplier will swap it for free. Maybe they did it to get it swapped quickly, but there are faster methods.
This is a bad use of time and resources and you cant do this when you own a business. Your time is so much more valuable now and you always need to look at the bigger picture. The opportunity cost in this case was very high, the loss of hundreds of dollars.
If I were in their place, I would have either posted a hard drive with same day delivery from either their town or directly from the supplier to the client and be out of pocket for a little while until I got the replacement on the failing hard drive.
If I had known about the delays I wouldn’t have even bothered getting it swapped for free, I would have just purchased a new one. There is no point my client paying for 2-3 hours of my time to swap a hard drive for free when I could have just billed for 1 hour plus the cost of the hard drive.
So how much was their time worth? Obviously not much.
Session expired
Please log in again. The login page will open in a new tab. After logging in you can close it and return to this page.
Wow, so this is the hard drive story you was telling me about the other day.
Perhaps they were taking into consideration the value of their customer support. In my opinion my existing customers opinions of me and my business are worth more than potential customers money.
I’m thinking they had a contract for immediate service. Sometimes small shops like this will sign contracts for guaranteed service and not think of the consequences. It seems like a good idea at the time, but ends up costing later like in your scenario. I’d check on that kind of thing before posting that they don’t see their own time as valuable. They might just be stuck.
I agree with Joseph, the only way that would be worth it is if you’re trying to keep your reputation in tact for a well paying or long standing client as opposed to new customers whose loyalty is unknown. Still, either way I’d say in this particular circumstance it was probably not worth it.
Firstly, I must stress I’m a big fan of technibble, and have picked up many valuable bits of advice from it.
But I must say this just seems a really hard way to go about swapping a drive.
If I had to use a particular drive from a certain supplier I’d of obtained the replacement first. Generally what we call a “forward replacement”. Then I would go onsite with the new drive and swap it out.
Blanking the faulty drive before fitting and checking the new drive is ok is a bit risky as what if the other drive in the raid failed too (I have seen it happen!).
The husband and wife team mustn’t value their time much at all. If they had to get a drive urgently and couldn’t do a forward replacement, they could’ve just brought a new drive from the supplier, then got the faulty one replaced under warranty then sold it again later.. as it would’ve been far cheaper than having to drive that far.
Something doesn’t add up either with the supplier taking so long to get the drive ready, and insisting the shop owner swaps the drive with them. Surely if they realized it’d be such a lot of driving etc for her they’d bend the rules a bit.
@Loren haha waving a wand to remove viruses. LOL.
Also, when doing on-site repair, always estimate how much time you will take then add 30 min. Sometimes it really takes more than what you estimated and it and that’s when an hourly rate would be recommended.
Sucks for that lady to drive 6 hours to swap a hard drive. Next you’ll hear a guy flying out to fix one server.
I don’t get why they came as a team, one of them should of stayed and did the work back home. I would never take my tech with me on a job unless it was a 2 man job.
Bryce, this is the “learning lessons” I teach my staff when they get caught up in a repair drama. Learn once, never repeat. Good story.
My time is worth $90 an hour, so I would have lost a ton that day.
I think you’re missing the point. I’ll bet the reason for the long trip was in the statement “…cannot be me.” They have no idea that you’re an honest repair person that actually knows how to repair pcs. There are less charlatans in our industry than there used to be, but there are still some. I used to hear of a guy that would go around removing viruses from monitors with a wand. Their relationship with that client was more valuable to them than the money they lost. Perhaps that’s the way it should be.
This would be a learning lesson indeed. I’d never waste my time like this, would pay for a quick replacement. I’d also drop the supplier who takes so long to provide a replacement.
You also have to take into account the goodwill on the server that they have sold this customer, they do not want bad rep about their servers failing since it was so new, even though it wasnt their fault.
Looking at the issue, it is obvious you guys don’t have a business, you have a job. As long as you are exchanging time for money – that’s a job. A business will bring you income even while you sleep. Business owners will take vacations and still have positive cashflow. I can afford to spend my time as I see fit, because my income is not tied to my time. That’s financial freedom. You are all self employed which still spells J-O-B. From a job stand point this couple wasted money, but from a business owner point of view, they did what was necessary to keep the system active.
Wow…unbelievable story. I’ve swapped out many hard drives, but never gone to those lenghts. I would just order a new one or go pick it up at the store. Sixty dollars is nothing compared to my time and my customers time.
Lessons learned.
Where is the preventative maintenance? I like to keep stock of extra inventory at each client’s office. For instance, have a couple 500gb sata hdd(seagate only) and maybe some memory sticks(crucial only) in the data closet itself. There is no need to take from your business’s inventory nor order a new one online or even purchase one from your local tech store. I do understand that I would still want to be onsite physically taking charge of the replacement in order to oversee the entire resolution. Just be prepared for those JIC(Just in Case) situations.