Another "Make-your-own-job" possibility

[kranky]

I had a thread the other day about "compcierges", and today I ran across another possible job area for techgeeks.

We sometimes buy used office furniture (storage cabinets, mostly) and I had to go to the company we buy from to inspect some stuff, and the warehouse was up to the rafters with the remnants of dead dot-coms.

While we were walking around, he told me how he often gets used PCs, laptops, and servers from bankruptcy sales and direct purchases. He'd prefer not to buy them (he knows very little about computers) but sometimes he has to take all the stuff or nothing.

Now where do you come in? He told me he has a guy that charges him $50 to wipe/reload a computer and create a CD-R with all the drivers for each specific system. He rarely gets any driver disks or docs with the systems so he has no clue what's inside. His computer guy comes in whenever he feels like it (there's rarely any big rush to get them done), reformats and reloads Windows, tracks down all the drivers for whatever is in the PC and makes the CD-R. Then the office furniture guy has a system with a CD of drivers he can sell for much more than if it was a total unknown. It will boot up without errors to a blank desktop and that is very appealing to a buyer.

The computer guy also will take a pile of PCs with problems and make salable systems by moving the parts around. Again, that is more money for the office furniture guy.

The computer guy does this in his spare time. The office equipment guy thinks $50 is a heck of a deal, since he's probably making $100-200 more per system this way.

Perhaps you have used office equipment dealers around or places who buy surplus equipment. Chances are they have no computer geeks on staff, so they may need someone to do stuff like this. Just a thought.

 

[hoihtah]

i'd be intersted...
but where can i find these used office equipment dealers?

 

[kranky]

You should be able to find some in the Yellow Pages.

 

[chiwawa626]

heh i live nexto one of these dotcom clearout places, its called weird stuff warehouse (weirdstuff.com) but there they have the nerdyest people who overprice and know everything about the electroinx side of everything....its soo anoying, its like the simpsons comic book guy , but theres like 5 of em there in blue lab coats..its a scary place to be.

 

[Geekbabe]

Kranky,


Just an FYI and a thanks, I did a bit of looking around and that hotel idea just might pan out with a contract or two


As far as the salvage stuff goes, I grab that stuff when ever I can to resell myself, if a driver was ever made for it, I will find the darn thing if $$$ are involved

 

[kranky]

Baffled2, I really hope that pans out! You're in the right city, that's for sure.

The stuff I saw wasn't really "salvage". He had two laptops that he found in a file cabinet he bought that couldn't have been 3 months old, and a pile of about 15 P4s he didn't even want. He had so much stuff (I suppose due to the economy) that he had bid only $400 on all the office furniture in a 10-office failed dotcom, hoping someone else would win. But they took his bid, and they gave him the PCs anyway. This stuff was Dell and Gateway, and the only thing he didn't get was 5 racks full of servers and RAID 5 arrays - the UPS for the servers cost $125,000!

He said there are so many bankruptcy auctions, the auctioneers aren't even breaking up the lots for best value because they don't have the time. The furniture people are willing to take the computer stuff, but the people who just want the computers won't bid if they have to take the furniture too. The failed companies are in such a hurry to get out of the offices they don't even care what they get for the stuff - they save so much in rent by vacating the offices, it's worth it to them.