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A co-worked of mine convinced the company to buy them a MacBook (the first the company has ever purchased) to replace their aging Dell laptop. They have been do

A co-worked of mine convinced the company to buy them a MacBook (the first the company has ever purchased) to replace their aging Dell laptop. They have been doing more and more work on the company's iOS app and the aging Mac mini the company had purchased needed to replaced anyway. After having the laptop for just over a year, they called me upset as the laptop would no longer power on. After some gentle interrogation they admitted that they had eaten a snack near the laptop and that, perhaps, a small amount of seltzer had "hit the keyboard". I had them bring it to the Apple Store and Apple refused to repair it under the warranty as it had "water damage." I had asked the company to purchase the extended warranty but that had been lost in the shuffle. My co-worker ended up shelling out ~$1000 out of pocket as they needed to get work done and they had very real feelings of guilt. After all, they did _eat_ near to the laptop. I agree no laptop should get wet, or have a dollop of guacamole sauce splashed across the keyboard, or have the display sprayed with a fine mist of Coca-Cola as someone laughs and an unexpected joke. But these things happen and I don't think Apple is helping anyone by making laptops that can't withstand these common mishaps.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
alexhutcheson 8y ago
Is it normal for companies to expect employees to pay for accidentally damaged equipment? At everywhere that I've worked, some accidental damage was treated as a cost of doing business, and IT would replace it.
- jcomis 8y ago
  No that is not at all normal
- cmiles74 8y ago
  I don't think so... Generally all of the Dell's have an extended warranty and, so far, most of the damage has been covered under that. Where I work there is also an insurance policy to cover laptop damage, they are currently in talks with the insurance company to get the damage covered. I think that in the end my co-worker will be refunded the money. I don't think they will be left with the bill.
- luckydata 8y ago
  In many companies that's the case. I hate it.
  - cmurf 8y ago
    Let them sue. They'll lose if they can't prove negligence.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- nolok 8y ago
  I guess parent and you are talking in the US context, but to add another data point in France it's not even legal. If the employee did it on purpose or by (grave or repeated) negligence then you can fire them with fault, if they really tried to harm the company "faute lourde" and then sue them for damage. But making them pay for repairs for a laptop after accidental every day accident? You would lose up in prud'homme court faster than ever (its the worker / employees court).
- ubermonkey 8y ago
  Absolutely not. Maybe if there's a pattern of repeated irresponsible behavior, I could see a little bit of an argument for it, but the more likely state of affairs would be that the problem employee would only ever be given shitty or cast-off machines. Frankly, I'd see it as more reasonable to FIRE someone who repeatedly failed to care for company equipment appropriately.
- rootusrootus 8y ago
  Not a single company I've worked for has had a policy of employees paying for accidental damage.
- da_chicken 8y ago
  IMX, it varies. At the hospital I worked, damaged equipment was replaced without question, but only doctors were issued laptops or iPaqs (this was pre-smartphone). If the same individual kept damaging equipment it went to the individual's lead or supervisor for disciplinary reasons, but I only ever saw that once when a guy threw three iPaqs against a wall (never found out why). At the school district I work, the policy for staff is similar to the policy for students. If the damage is caused through normal wear, the district pays. If the damage from a preventable accident and a first incident, the district pays. Everybody gets one excused. If the damage from a preventable accident and it's a second or later incident, the staff member is charged $25 or the cost of the repair (whichever is greater). If the damage is intentional, then the staff member always pays. This comes up more often than you might expect. Stuff like lost keyboard keys we didn't track, but pretty much everything else we did. We have about 600 staff devices. There's usually one or two individuals every year who are careless enough or unfortunate enough to have to pay for damage to their district issued system. I recall one teacher whose children kept damaging her work laptop. That year she bought 3 chargers (cord cut) and a laptop (it had to have been thrown or dropped over 10 feet). She was told she couldn't take her laptop home anymore. Simply put, the district does not have the funding to replace laptops that staff members damage.
  - dmitryminkovsky 8y ago
    > If the damage is intentional, then the staff member always pays. This comes up more often than you might expect. ? I’m guess the children example you mentioned might be one example of this?
    - da_chicken 8y ago
      That does happen and it is considered intentional, but, no I meant the staff themselves damaging them. Drawing on them (the screen in particular, which often doesn't come off cleanly), popping the keys off and on until they break, flexing parts of the case (hinge covers) until it breaks, getting angry and hitting the computer and breaking something. Anything you would expect a kid to do we've seen teachers admit to doing themselves. Kids do that stuff too, but they also do stuff like break headphones off in the jack, punch a hole in the screen with a pen, gouge the screen with scissors or a hobby knife, smash them on the ground, stand on them, sit on them, etc.
- baddox 8y ago
  AFAIK it's normal for companies to have warranties for expensive computer equipment. The small tech startups I'm familiar with just buy consumer AppleCare or the equivalent, while the bigger companies I'm familiar with have big enterprise warranty plans.
JustSomeNobody 8y ago
> My co-worker ended up shelling out ~$1000 out of pocket as they needed to get work done and they had very real feelings of guilt. Ouch! Really? What kind of company wouldn't pay for this repair? And isn't this some sort of legal issue? The laptop doesn't belong to your co-worker so they can't really authorize repair of it. Just a weird situation, that.
- cmiles74 8y ago
  I think this may have been lost in my post: the Genius at the Apple Store was clear and insistent when they diagnosed the issue with the laptop that the customer was at fault. It is my suspicion that Apple is trying to push blame onto the customer and I think that is unfair at least in some situations. It reminds me of the extended warranty on phones; you get one because in the course of regular use you might drop the phone. In this case Apple has made these machines deliberately brittle and now you really need to get that extended warranty because in the course of regular use you might sneeze on the keyboard or drop crumbs of something onto it. They also need to get work done ASAP and while we have spare Dell laptops on-hand, we don't have any spare MacBooks. I expect them to be reimbursed eventually, there is an insurance policy that covers lost or damaged laptops.
EGreg 8y ago
You can get one of these for really cheap... I use them to type in other languages https://m.aliexpress.com/s/item/32774074005.html https://m.aliexpress.com/s/item/32774074005.html
- BRAlNlAC 8y ago
  And if you care about mushiness the TPU ones are great compared to the silicone ones. example [1]. Yeah, I don't understand this whole, "my expensive computer isn't bulletproof sentiment". One of the things I was stoked about and ultimately a major factor that won me over when I bought my personal MacBook Pro back in late 2013 was that you could buy a matte screen protector and keyboard cover that fit like a glove. I had a friend with a 2009 MBP that was in amazing condition despite being his only machine when he was in high school, living by the couch and frequently being the entertainment source while eating. He had promptly put it in a case and put a keyboard cover on after receiving it. I agree with sentiment that some laptops are going to get eaten over, but I don't think it's the manufacturer's job to make sure that it can tolerate that. Some people are never going to eat over their laptop. Like I don't bring food near my. I can tell you from experience that if I want full power on my MBP I need to take it out of its plastic case and definitely take off the keyboard cover. And I do do this when the task at hand warrants it, but most of the time I keep the cover on, and I appreciate the flexibility. [1] I recently replaced my old one and bought this; I'd recommend it. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AQFFSAG https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AQFFSAG
  - cerberusss 8y ago
    Thanks for the tip, bought it.
scarface74 8y ago
I’m in no way defending Apple’s keyboards and there are some real issues with tiny bits of dust completely ruining a keyboard, but normal laptops have always been susceptible to even a little liquid damage. But if your coworker couldn’t just go to his manager, tell them what happened and the company paid for it, that says more about the company.
- jammygit 8y ago
  I know somebody who spilled a whole slurpee into a cheap desktop keyboard once and had it continue working fine. I would pay extra. To have a laptop like that for sure.
  - gnicholas 8y ago
    A desktop keyboard is a completely different story than a laptop. It can be much thicker and therefore more mechanical than a laptop keyboard. I don’t need my laptop to be slurpee-proof, and given the trade offs of laptop design I hope it isn’t. I’d think this would add significant heft to the device to be able to guarantee such performance.
    - jammygit 8y ago
      Fair enough, but I'd just say that I don't mind an extra half inch if the device weighed the same. IMHO, 10 year old 13 inch laptops were plenty small, but I do appreciate the lower weights
      - gnicholas 8y ago
        Sure, I wouldn't mind a tiny bit thicker to get the old MBA/MBP style keyboard back. I also loved the "Blackbook" keyboard, and the 12" Aluminum PowerBook. Those were the days!
      - TheOperator 8y ago
        I wouldn't mind a bump in weight just because of how stupid the compromises have become. Maybe not back to 6 pound laptops but still.
ddingus 8y ago
I had that happen to my 2012 MBP. Ordered replacement top case with keyboard assembly off ebay. Took a very long day to take it all apart, transfer to new top, and reassemble. Worked first time. A few months later random keys would glitch. I use it like a desktop when I need to now.
dathinab 8y ago
Honestly any Laptop you pay 1200+ on should "survive"(1) you _splashing_ Coffee on it, not just a view drops of liquid. It's totally technical doable in a number of ways and the only thing in its way is because you are fanatic about getting your laptop another mm thinner and/or profit margins. (1): Survive in the sense that it's in general fine and you at most have to replace some easy to replace not super expensive part. I for example splashed ~1/2L of Orange juice on my Laptop, and it was fine except for the keyboard (due to it being orange juice, water probably would have been fine). Removing the keyboard so that I can continue working with an external one took ~10min for an inexperienced person. And the replacement Keyboard had a price of ~80 Euro with Backlight 40 without, also easy to put back in.
- evoloution 8y ago
  Several years ago, I had a Sony Vaio VGN-FS115M and it was in the waterproof laptop sleeve in my bag. I literally poured a whole hot latte with sugar in the sleeve and the laptop was swimming in coffee. I took it out, removed the battery, disassembled it, took away all visible stains carefully with a good quality paper towel and let it dry. A year later the only thing not working was the lan port and I blame the sugar for that... If the same thing happened today my laptop would be long dead before I could disconnect the battery...
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  Apple has little motivation to fix durability issues. They've always been willing to prioritize elegance and form over durability anyway. This is a fine Italian motorcycle, not a Russian dirtbike, of course it has less tolerance for the user "using it wrong". Sure it would be nice if they made them more durable but that's just not the kind of product they are interested in making and it's working out well for them thus far. Part of owning a "premium" product is signaling that you can pay the associated costs that go with it so being not durable enough isn't as bad of a thing for a high end product like an iPhone or MBP.
  - throwaway2048 8y ago
    So its good that macbooks break easily and are expensive to repair because it shows you are rich? Riiiight...
G4BB3R 8y ago
I am sorry for what happened. But I just can't understand people who drink and eat at the same table with electronics. It is hard to happen, but eventually it will and will damage everything, so why doing that, this upsets me when I see people taking risks for nothing. Foods and drinks shouldn't stay outside kitchen.
- bdamm 8y ago
  Your kids are different from my kids then.
- dysoco 8y ago
  So what? You've never carried your laptop to a café and bough some coffee and a donut? It's 2019, I'm not saying laptops should withstand me dropping an entire can of soda on top of the keyboard, but I should be able to eat near it or maybe even above it without any serious repercussions.
- RugnirViking 8y ago
  "this upsets me when I see people taking risks for nothing" this happens all the time, for every task. Life is practically a game of balancing risk and reward. Different people balance risk in different ways. Perhaps they accept the risk, but find that the productivity boost or convenience of eating at their desk is worth the small risk of paying for the price of a new laptop/keyboard. Or perhaps they have mistunderstood the risk, having never (yet) suffered through the process of replacing it.
headsupftw 8y ago
By Bay Area standards, you work for a super shitty company.
- cmiles74 8y ago
  I don't think anyone was prepared for this to be something that wasn't covered under warranty or, if it wasn't covered, so expensive. Where I work there is an insurance policy to cover laptop damage, they are currently in talks with the insurance company to get the damage covered. I think that in the end my co-worker will be refunded the money. I don't think they will be left with the bill.
- baddox 8y ago
  I think it's terrible for any company to cause an employee to reasonably think they need to pay out of pocket for the company's equipment. "Bay Area standards" have little to do with it. My first part-time job was doing tech support for a small town public school district that had very little money and was far from a flashy Bay Area tech company, but they had a supply contract with HP that covered equipment failure and damage.
camelNotation 8y ago
Not only are Thinkpad keyboards the most comfortable and satisfying on the market, you can literally pour water on them and it will drain out the bottom of the laptop without ever touching internal components. After using my Thinkpad for about six months, I can't go back. The keyboard is amazing, build quality is rock solid, screen is 4k with 100% RGB, and you can actually upgrade the thing. I buy a laptop because I need a mobile keyboard experience. Why on earth would I buy a laptop with a keyboard that feels awful and can't handle normal use? Honestly, if I absolute had to have OSX, I would just buy a Mac Mini and deal with the stationary aspect of it. Macbooks are just that bad. If I desperately needed portable Mac, I would probably even be willing to deal with iOS on the iPad pro over a Macbook.
- npongratz 8y ago
  I want to like Thinkpads for their hardware quality, but I cannot get over Lenovo stuffing malware into their systems, even after they got caught. How can I be put at ease?
  - chx 8y ago
    That was IdeaPad, nothing to do with ThinkPad.
    - npongratz 8y ago
      Good to know, thanks! Do both lines have completely different engineering and management leadership? That might put me at some ease.
      - moftz 8y ago
        The Ideapads are built like the cheap piece of crap x86 Windows laptops you can buy from anyone. They are fine for grandma checking her email but they are not meant to be on the move or do anything hard. I'm assuming the engineering teams are totally different. Thinkpads aren't cheap and the build quality generally shows that.
AareyBaba 8y ago
I have ruined several keyboards (3 Apple, 1 HP) by accidentally spilling water/coffee on them. What I don't understand is how do these devices get completely destroyed by small amounts of liquid. I've disassembled these keyboards, cleaned and dried them out to no avail. Is something getting shorted out permanently ? Is some sensor getting ruined ? what exactly is happening and is there nothing that can be done to revive them.
- darkpuma 8y ago
  Corrosion is almost always to blame. Corrosion damage can often be repaired with some microsoldering work.
sf_rob 8y ago
I damaged my company 2017 MBP by dropping it ~24" when I caught the cord on my foot. The Genius Bar wanted me to pre-authorize $800 of charges before they would even look at it. I was a bit appalled that I couldn't pay any kind of diagnostic fee.
- EForEndeavour 8y ago
  A moment of silence for the dearly departed MagSafe.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
TheOperator 8y ago
I think laptops SHOULD be water resistant actually and that it's bullshit to not be able to eat and drink at my computer. So I buy durable computers instead of the MBP. Probably the only think that's truly inadvisable is drinking stuff like sugary drinks and milk at the computer because that crap is really hard to clean. Drink water. I've always liked Lenovo computers ability to take a spill.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

alexhutcheson 8y ago

Is it normal for companies to expect employees to pay for accidentally damaged equipment? At everywhere that I've worked, some accidental damage was treated as a cost of doing business, and IT would replace it.

jcomis 8y ago
No that is not at all normal
cmiles74 8y ago
I don't think so... Generally all of the Dell's have an extended warranty and, so far, most of the damage has been covered under that. Where I work there is also an insurance policy to cover laptop damage, they are currently in talks with the insurance company to get the damage covered. I think that in the end my co-worker will be refunded the money. I don't think they will be left with the bill.
luckydata 8y ago
In many companies that's the case. I hate it.
- cmurf 8y ago
  Let them sue. They'll lose if they can't prove negligence.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
nolok 8y ago
I guess parent and you are talking in the US context, but to add another data point in France it's not even legal. If the employee did it on purpose or by (grave or repeated) negligence then you can fire them with fault, if they really tried to harm the company "faute lourde" and then sue them for damage. But making them pay for repairs for a laptop after accidental every day accident? You would lose up in prud'homme court faster than ever (its the worker / employees court).
ubermonkey 8y ago
Absolutely not. Maybe if there's a pattern of repeated irresponsible behavior, I could see a little bit of an argument for it, but the more likely state of affairs would be that the problem employee would only ever be given shitty or cast-off machines. Frankly, I'd see it as more reasonable to FIRE someone who repeatedly failed to care for company equipment appropriately.
rootusrootus 8y ago
Not a single company I've worked for has had a policy of employees paying for accidental damage.
da_chicken 8y ago
IMX, it varies. At the hospital I worked, damaged equipment was replaced without question, but only doctors were issued laptops or iPaqs (this was pre-smartphone). If the same individual kept damaging equipment it went to the individual's lead or supervisor for disciplinary reasons, but I only ever saw that once when a guy threw three iPaqs against a wall (never found out why). At the school district I work, the policy for staff is similar to the policy for students. If the damage is caused through normal wear, the district pays. If the damage from a preventable accident and a first incident, the district pays. Everybody gets one excused. If the damage from a preventable accident and it's a second or later incident, the staff member is charged $25 or the cost of the repair (whichever is greater). If the damage is intentional, then the staff member always pays. This comes up more often than you might expect. Stuff like lost keyboard keys we didn't track, but pretty much everything else we did. We have about 600 staff devices. There's usually one or two individuals every year who are careless enough or unfortunate enough to have to pay for damage to their district issued system. I recall one teacher whose children kept damaging her work laptop. That year she bought 3 chargers (cord cut) and a laptop (it had to have been thrown or dropped over 10 feet). She was told she couldn't take her laptop home anymore. Simply put, the district does not have the funding to replace laptops that staff members damage.
- dmitryminkovsky 8y ago
  > If the damage is intentional, then the staff member always pays. This comes up more often than you might expect. ? I’m guess the children example you mentioned might be one example of this?
  - da_chicken 8y ago
    That does happen and it is considered intentional, but, no I meant the staff themselves damaging them. Drawing on them (the screen in particular, which often doesn't come off cleanly), popping the keys off and on until they break, flexing parts of the case (hinge covers) until it breaks, getting angry and hitting the computer and breaking something. Anything you would expect a kid to do we've seen teachers admit to doing themselves. Kids do that stuff too, but they also do stuff like break headphones off in the jack, punch a hole in the screen with a pen, gouge the screen with scissors or a hobby knife, smash them on the ground, stand on them, sit on them, etc.
baddox 8y ago
AFAIK it's normal for companies to have warranties for expensive computer equipment. The small tech startups I'm familiar with just buy consumer AppleCare or the equivalent, while the bigger companies I'm familiar with have big enterprise warranty plans.

JustSomeNobody 8y ago

> My co-worker ended up shelling out ~$1000 out of pocket as they needed to get work done and they had very real feelings of guilt. Ouch! Really? What kind of company wouldn't pay for this repair? And isn't this some sort of legal issue? The laptop doesn't belong to your co-worker so they can't really authorize repair of it. Just a weird situation, that.

cmiles74 8y ago
I think this may have been lost in my post: the Genius at the Apple Store was clear and insistent when they diagnosed the issue with the laptop that the customer was at fault. It is my suspicion that Apple is trying to push blame onto the customer and I think that is unfair at least in some situations. It reminds me of the extended warranty on phones; you get one because in the course of regular use you might drop the phone. In this case Apple has made these machines deliberately brittle and now you really need to get that extended warranty because in the course of regular use you might sneeze on the keyboard or drop crumbs of something onto it. They also need to get work done ASAP and while we have spare Dell laptops on-hand, we don't have any spare MacBooks. I expect them to be reimbursed eventually, there is an insurance policy that covers lost or damaged laptops.

EGreg 8y ago

You can get one of these for really cheap... I use them to type in other languages https://m.aliexpress.com/s/item/32774074005.html https://m.aliexpress.com/s/item/32774074005.html

BRAlNlAC 8y ago
And if you care about mushiness the TPU ones are great compared to the silicone ones. example [1]. Yeah, I don't understand this whole, "my expensive computer isn't bulletproof sentiment". One of the things I was stoked about and ultimately a major factor that won me over when I bought my personal MacBook Pro back in late 2013 was that you could buy a matte screen protector and keyboard cover that fit like a glove. I had a friend with a 2009 MBP that was in amazing condition despite being his only machine when he was in high school, living by the couch and frequently being the entertainment source while eating. He had promptly put it in a case and put a keyboard cover on after receiving it. I agree with sentiment that some laptops are going to get eaten over, but I don't think it's the manufacturer's job to make sure that it can tolerate that. Some people are never going to eat over their laptop. Like I don't bring food near my. I can tell you from experience that if I want full power on my MBP I need to take it out of its plastic case and definitely take off the keyboard cover. And I do do this when the task at hand warrants it, but most of the time I keep the cover on, and I appreciate the flexibility. [1] I recently replaced my old one and bought this; I'd recommend it. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AQFFSAG https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AQFFSAG
- cerberusss 8y ago
  Thanks for the tip, bought it.

scarface74 8y ago

I’m in no way defending Apple’s keyboards and there are some real issues with tiny bits of dust completely ruining a keyboard, but normal laptops have always been susceptible to even a little liquid damage. But if your coworker couldn’t just go to his manager, tell them what happened and the company paid for it, that says more about the company.

jammygit 8y ago
I know somebody who spilled a whole slurpee into a cheap desktop keyboard once and had it continue working fine. I would pay extra. To have a laptop like that for sure.
- gnicholas 8y ago
  A desktop keyboard is a completely different story than a laptop. It can be much thicker and therefore more mechanical than a laptop keyboard. I don’t need my laptop to be slurpee-proof, and given the trade offs of laptop design I hope it isn’t. I’d think this would add significant heft to the device to be able to guarantee such performance.
  - jammygit 8y ago
    Fair enough, but I'd just say that I don't mind an extra half inch if the device weighed the same. IMHO, 10 year old 13 inch laptops were plenty small, but I do appreciate the lower weights
    - gnicholas 8y ago
      Sure, I wouldn't mind a tiny bit thicker to get the old MBA/MBP style keyboard back. I also loved the "Blackbook" keyboard, and the 12" Aluminum PowerBook. Those were the days!
    - TheOperator 8y ago
      I wouldn't mind a bump in weight just because of how stupid the compromises have become. Maybe not back to 6 pound laptops but still.

ddingus 8y ago

I had that happen to my 2012 MBP. Ordered replacement top case with keyboard assembly off ebay. Took a very long day to take it all apart, transfer to new top, and reassemble. Worked first time. A few months later random keys would glitch. I use it like a desktop when I need to now.

dathinab 8y ago

Honestly any Laptop you pay 1200+ on should "survive"(1) you _splashing_ Coffee on it, not just a view drops of liquid. It's totally technical doable in a number of ways and the only thing in its way is because you are fanatic about getting your laptop another mm thinner and/or profit margins. (1): Survive in the sense that it's in general fine and you at most have to replace some easy to replace not super expensive part. I for example splashed ~1/2L of Orange juice on my Laptop, and it was fine except for the keyboard (due to it being orange juice, water probably would have been fine). Removing the keyboard so that I can continue working with an external one took ~10min for an inexperienced person. And the replacement Keyboard had a price of ~80 Euro with Backlight 40 without, also easy to put back in.

evoloution 8y ago
Several years ago, I had a Sony Vaio VGN-FS115M and it was in the waterproof laptop sleeve in my bag. I literally poured a whole hot latte with sugar in the sleeve and the laptop was swimming in coffee. I took it out, removed the battery, disassembled it, took away all visible stains carefully with a good quality paper towel and let it dry. A year later the only thing not working was the lan port and I blame the sugar for that... If the same thing happened today my laptop would be long dead before I could disconnect the battery...
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
Apple has little motivation to fix durability issues. They've always been willing to prioritize elegance and form over durability anyway. This is a fine Italian motorcycle, not a Russian dirtbike, of course it has less tolerance for the user "using it wrong". Sure it would be nice if they made them more durable but that's just not the kind of product they are interested in making and it's working out well for them thus far. Part of owning a "premium" product is signaling that you can pay the associated costs that go with it so being not durable enough isn't as bad of a thing for a high end product like an iPhone or MBP.
- throwaway2048 8y ago
  So its good that macbooks break easily and are expensive to repair because it shows you are rich? Riiiight...

G4BB3R 8y ago

I am sorry for what happened. But I just can't understand people who drink and eat at the same table with electronics. It is hard to happen, but eventually it will and will damage everything, so why doing that, this upsets me when I see people taking risks for nothing. Foods and drinks shouldn't stay outside kitchen.

bdamm 8y ago
Your kids are different from my kids then.
dysoco 8y ago
So what? You've never carried your laptop to a café and bough some coffee and a donut? It's 2019, I'm not saying laptops should withstand me dropping an entire can of soda on top of the keyboard, but I should be able to eat near it or maybe even above it without any serious repercussions.
RugnirViking 8y ago
"this upsets me when I see people taking risks for nothing" this happens all the time, for every task. Life is practically a game of balancing risk and reward. Different people balance risk in different ways. Perhaps they accept the risk, but find that the productivity boost or convenience of eating at their desk is worth the small risk of paying for the price of a new laptop/keyboard. Or perhaps they have mistunderstood the risk, having never (yet) suffered through the process of replacing it.

headsupftw 8y ago

By Bay Area standards, you work for a super shitty company.

cmiles74 8y ago
I don't think anyone was prepared for this to be something that wasn't covered under warranty or, if it wasn't covered, so expensive. Where I work there is an insurance policy to cover laptop damage, they are currently in talks with the insurance company to get the damage covered. I think that in the end my co-worker will be refunded the money. I don't think they will be left with the bill.
baddox 8y ago
I think it's terrible for any company to cause an employee to reasonably think they need to pay out of pocket for the company's equipment. "Bay Area standards" have little to do with it. My first part-time job was doing tech support for a small town public school district that had very little money and was far from a flashy Bay Area tech company, but they had a supply contract with HP that covered equipment failure and damage.

camelNotation 8y ago

Not only are Thinkpad keyboards the most comfortable and satisfying on the market, you can literally pour water on them and it will drain out the bottom of the laptop without ever touching internal components. After using my Thinkpad for about six months, I can't go back. The keyboard is amazing, build quality is rock solid, screen is 4k with 100% RGB, and you can actually upgrade the thing. I buy a laptop because I need a mobile keyboard experience. Why on earth would I buy a laptop with a keyboard that feels awful and can't handle normal use? Honestly, if I absolute had to have OSX, I would just buy a Mac Mini and deal with the stationary aspect of it. Macbooks are just that bad. If I desperately needed portable Mac, I would probably even be willing to deal with iOS on the iPad pro over a Macbook.

npongratz 8y ago
I want to like Thinkpads for their hardware quality, but I cannot get over Lenovo stuffing malware into their systems, even after they got caught. How can I be put at ease?
- chx 8y ago
  That was IdeaPad, nothing to do with ThinkPad.
  - npongratz 8y ago
    Good to know, thanks! Do both lines have completely different engineering and management leadership? That might put me at some ease.
    - moftz 8y ago
      The Ideapads are built like the cheap piece of crap x86 Windows laptops you can buy from anyone. They are fine for grandma checking her email but they are not meant to be on the move or do anything hard. I'm assuming the engineering teams are totally different. Thinkpads aren't cheap and the build quality generally shows that.

AareyBaba 8y ago

I have ruined several keyboards (3 Apple, 1 HP) by accidentally spilling water/coffee on them. What I don't understand is how do these devices get completely destroyed by small amounts of liquid. I've disassembled these keyboards, cleaned and dried them out to no avail. Is something getting shorted out permanently ? Is some sensor getting ruined ? what exactly is happening and is there nothing that can be done to revive them.

darkpuma 8y ago
Corrosion is almost always to blame. Corrosion damage can often be repaired with some microsoldering work.

sf_rob 8y ago

I damaged my company 2017 MBP by dropping it ~24" when I caught the cord on my foot. The Genius Bar wanted me to pre-authorize $800 of charges before they would even look at it. I was a bit appalled that I couldn't pay any kind of diagnostic fee.

EForEndeavour 8y ago
A moment of silence for the dearly departed MagSafe.
- deleted 8y ago
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TheOperator 8y ago

I think laptops SHOULD be water resistant actually and that it's bullshit to not be able to eat and drink at my computer. So I buy durable computers instead of the MBP. Probably the only think that's truly inadvisable is drinking stuff like sugary drinks and milk at the computer because that crap is really hard to clean. Drink water. I've always liked Lenovo computers ability to take a spill.