About the business
Robert. One technician, 666 suburbs.
Robert is a Microsoft Certified computer repair technician working across Brisbane, Logan, Ipswich and the surrounding suburbs. This page explains how the business works, and - just as importantly - what it will not do.
Years spent on a help desk
Before this was a one-person business it was a support queue. Robert spent years on the help desk of the largest IT company in the world, taking calls from people whose computer had just stopped doing the one thing they needed it to do. The job was never really about components. It was about working out which of a hundred possible causes fits the symptom, from a phone call, without the person on the other end understanding anything technical.
Why that matters at your kitchen table
A help desk learns to diagnose fast because the queue does not wait. It also learns which fixes are worth doing and which are a waste of the customer's money - because you find out what happens next. On a job where there is no follow-up queue, that judgement is the entire service, and it is the part that cannot be automated away.
One person, not a company
This is deliberately a one-person business. The technician who answers the phone is the technician who arrives and does the work. There is no dispatcher, no subcontractor, no junior tech learning on your machine, and nobody whose commission depends on selling you a service plan. It also means the rates are competitive, because there is no office, no insurance overhead and no dispatch system baked into your invoice.
Straight answers, including the bad ones
If your computer can be fixed for a hundred and fifty dollars, you will hear that. If it cannot be fixed, you will hear that too, and you will not be charged for the diagnosis. If a part is not worth fitting in a machine of that age, that is what you will be told. The business runs on people calling back, which is not something that survives telling people what they do not want to hear.
How the work is done
The price is the price
$150 for the first hour, whatever the job. Not a cheaper rate for a quick look and a bigger one once I know what I am looking at. No call-out fee, no weekend surcharge, and travel included.
Tell me before you spend
If a job is going to take another hour, or needs a part, you hear it while it is still a decision rather than an invoice.
Explain it properly
You get told what was actually wrong in language that does not require a glossary. If it is worth knowing for next time, you get told that too.
Clean up after yourself
Old data wiped, backups verified, the machine handed back tidy. No mystery files, no toolbars you did not ask for, no "please rate us" popup.
Talk to the technician, not a call centre
Describe the problem and you will get a straight answer about whether it is fixable and what it will cost, before anything is booked.
- Onsite rate
- $150
- first hour
- Call-out fee
- $0
- never
- Weekend surcharge
- $0
- incl. public holidays
- Typical visit
- < 1 hr
- most problems