So, Vinnies. Something to do in the days/weeks of the four years. I went into the office, and asked if they could do with a hand…and was subsequently grabbed with open arms..especially when I let it slip that I could fix electrical appliances. I cut it down to three days a week, then three afternoons a week after that. I had made myself a workshop ‘down the back’, including setting up a power point in there. Turned off the breaker, got down the back..and suddenly was cautious about a straight forward job, like hooking up a power point. I had a double insulated pair of pliers, after all. I went to strip the end of the live wire, that I had turned off at the switchboard, only to see a nice fat spark, as the metal in the pliers made contact with an earth as well. Um!
I had turned it off, and tested it before doing anything else, I thought. Anyway, I made it back to the switchboard at the same time as the office lady, who had gotten into the habit of resetting the breaker when the circuit had tripped, due to the heaters they were using. And, it was that circuit that I was using for the workshop down the back. Hoo Boy!
I got to know all sorts of people in Vinnies..including Unca Shane, and Aunty Jen, though him. He came down the back on some..probably nefarious reason, and found me up to the armpits in a colour tv, that..thankfully..was unplugged from the mains.
This was before the days of Accountability, when you really couldn’t sell any electrical goods second hand. Besides. I tested them all..safe to use. I had hooked up an oven to the 240 volts..to see if all the elements worked, that sort of thing. I was always wary about turning the power on in these circumstances..double checked, earth hooked up, etc etc. I turned on the power..and then came an almighty bang from the oven..scared me witless! Then there was a chuckle..one of the workers had given the oven a thump as he went past..the sod! Perfect timing, I might add.
A while later, they had labels printed out for all the electrical goods..no responsibility taken..etc etc. People were blasee…who’d turn down a colour tv for $100, when the going rate was #400 plus, when they could see it working? Live chassis colour tvs…um! I scored myself an isolation transformer later on..that cured that worry.
One of the tvs had weird symptoms..they were usually easy to fix. I asked around..apparently when the staff told a little old gent that I wasn’t due in for a few days, he took it upon himself to swap a few of the electronic valves around with a heap of spare ones I had collected from tvs that were beyond my skills to fix. Straange display..two hour glasses superimposed on each other. UM! No differentiation about the correct valve for the fitting either. If it fitted in, it got tried out.
One of the workers was on the annoying side…you really couldn’t have him mucking around in the back of a tv I was trying to fix..pulling a valve out of its socket..what’s this? Mark..god..where’d you get that from? Finally, I had the power on to a tv with the back off…I said..touch that..a resistor, a few volts floating around on it..and I watched, horror struck, as he did..he gave a jump..looked at the end of his finger, gave me a sideways look, scarpered..and he didn’t annoy me after that…could have been a lot worse, lemme tell you…some lethal voltages in them there tvs…