Hermanas Rivera · Dulce Heredia
Heredia, Costa Rica
“Antes nos pisábamos sin querer. Ahora cada novia recibe la misma respuesta, salga la conversación de la que salga.”
Story · Solo man, 58 · Buenos Aires, Argentina
Don Julio
CelMaster · Phone and tablet repair
Knowledge base
Service statuses
Transfers
“I have my old steady hand back. And on Fridays I buy flowers for my wife.”
- Don Julio
CelMaster is a small shop in Caballito, on a side street near Avenida Rivadavia. Don Julio repairs phones and tablets from every brand, works alone, and opens Tuesday through Saturday. People leave their device and come back when he lets them know.
He studied electronics at the technical school in Avellaneda. He spent thirty years repairing industrial electronics. When the company downsized him in 2014, he rented this shop with his savings. He thought it would last two years. He is on year eleven.
“I work with tweezers so fine they look like watchmaker tools. You need a steady hand. When your phone rings every two minutes with the same "is mine ready?", your hand loses it. There were days I cut my finger soldering because I grabbed the phone right as I was setting down the iron.”
- Don Julio
“Once I had a Samsung open on the bench and a guy walked in asking for a quote. I helped him. When I went back to the bench, I had accidentally left the hot iron on the flex cable. I burned the flex. That part came out of my pocket, eighty thousand pesos. That night I told my wife, "I have to do something."”
- Don Julio
What changed
One Saturday he sat down and gave the bot everything he had in his head after eleven years of work: prices by model and repair type, estimated times, the services he does and does not do, and the questions people repeat all the time: "is it original?", "does it have warranty?", "can I pay in installments?" When a job is done, he marks it ready on a screen and the bot notifies the customer. If a rare question comes in, the conversation goes to him.
Don Julio picks up the phone when he pauses. Not before. The tweezers do not move. New questions are handled by the bot: price, timing, what can be done and what cannot. After three months he calculated that he now completes two more repairs per day. He bought flowers for his wife on a Friday for no reason. He had not bought flowers in years.
“I was very distrustful. I am old school. I thought: this robot is going to quote wrong and I will be the one who looks bad. The first week I checked every quote it sent. And I realized it quoted better than me when I was rushed.”
- Don Julio
Some old clients come in to tell him the story of the phone: that their grandson gave it to them, that it fell in the pool. He handles those himself.
“Those I answer myself. It is part of the trade.”
- Don Julio
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