B,
I agree, and I will fess up that I'm one of those crazies.
Funny thing is that somehow I consider my repair people my friends, and I trust them. I respect and welcome Sherry's opinion: she is the expert and I am not. Also consider that I feel I somehow manage to get custom cameras built by a factory trained person. Also know that when I send a camera to Sherry I know that it is not really a CLA, but an overhaul with new parts. The point I'm making here is that sometimes you pay more to get more.
Harry Fleenor has huge backlogs, but like clockwork if he says three months at precisely three months your camera is being shipped. Also no charge to install and calibrate a Maxwell screen if the camera transport is being overhauled (not CLA'ed).
Frank Marshman has become my friend, and he built me a custom lens by putting the EBC coated glass from a donor 100/3.5 AE into a chrome manual focus body because I found a reasonably priced 100/3.5 AE that had a faulty CdS cell. Basically Frank transplanted and replaced the single coated glass in the chrome lens with EBC multicoated glass that was only available on the 100/3.5 AE.
All these special favors I'm sure are not worth the hassle to busy people that have more work them they need.
Yes I'm one of those crazies. LOL.
Cal
I have had personal experiences with repair people who are, shall we say, somewhat eccentric. And their demand is such that people put up with it.
I once took a treasured camera to a noted repair expert in person. He looked at my camera, pronounced it 'trash' and actually threw it into the trash can in front of me. I had to threaten to come around his counter and take the camera back myself before he would return it. I got it repaired elsewhere, of course.
On the other hand, I have dealt with a few repair people via phone and email who are no longer in the repair business. Their age was a factor, they wanted to retire anyway, but the stories they told me would curl your hair (well not my hair, I haven't any anymore). People who call at any hour of the day and night, curse like sailors, make entirely unreasonable demands, and expect that once their camera is repaired, the last person to touch it owns it forever in terms of warranty.
I have had the latter experience myself, when I briefly advertised my services for computer repair. If I reformatted a hard drive or removed a virus and later on the floppy drive went kerflooey, it was somehow my fault and I was supposed to fix it for free, forever. I even had a gentleman whose son managed to get every virus under the sun from the porn sites he would visit, and he somehow thought I had put those viruses on his computer when I removed them for him. Do anyone a favor and you'll regret it. Give a free repair or even free advice and you'll get it rammed down your throat, complete with threats of legal repercussions. People really can be giant flaming a-holes, and I'm sorry, but that's my experience. I quit repairing computers, and I have a lot of sympathy for those who still do that kind of work.
None of us think of ourselves that way, but let's face it, these people not only exist, but they're relatively common in the specialized arenas of things like cameras, watches, ink pens, and other forms of relatively esoteric high-end items. I've seen a few threads like this on RFF, and yes, sooner or later someone chimes in that so-and-so is a dirtbag because he dared to return a camera to them that had a stray hair or a dust speck in the lens. They don't think of themselves as an utterly unreasonable, over-demanding berk, but yeah, they kind of are.
I guess it's the nature of things. All I would remind folks is that these people with highly specialized knowledge are a) getting older and b) not as willing as they once were to put up with jerks. So maybe not be a jerk if one finds oneself disappointed from time to time.
All present company excepted, of course. I point no fingers, I merely make observations based on my personal experiences.
