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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: September 28th, 2023

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  • You’re saying that data centers are replacing batteries constantly…just imagine the labor costs on that (and the down time), not even considering the material cost.

    I’m the tech doing the battery replacements. The big boy UPSes are typically a 3-5 year replacement cycle. Something like this:

    (I just picked the last one on my phone so not a great picture, they’re about the size of a small refrigerator)

    On rack mount and desktop style UPSes 18-36 months isn’t unreasonable. Some of the smaller UPSes, like APC 750s, go through batteries even faster. My personal theory is that they just get and stay too hot.

    There is typically zero downtime while servicing any of them, every critical system has redundant power supply and battery replacements usually don’t interrupt power output anyway. It would take multiple failures to cause any sort of significant downtime, and if it would, we just do them during scheduled downtime.


  • I’ve had exactly two dishwashers completely stop functioning in my entire life. Both were GE post Haier and within the last 6 years. Also had a Haier made GE microwave completely fail.

    I replaced the microwave (and the matching stove) with Samsung and haven’t had one bit of trouble with either.

    I thought I had just gotten a lemon, but three separate failures within a couple of years has really soured my opinion of them. I was a lot more worried about the Samsung appliances I bought, but they’ve been a dream.

    Note: I am not recommending Samsung appliances, at all. I got an amazing deal and fully expected them to fail shortly after the warranty was up. I’ve had to repair several of my friends and family’s washers, dryers, and refrigerators. Samsung’s poor reputation is well earned, I just got lucky




  • I’ve worked for both individual owners and corporate owners, and it really really depends on the franchise. Chick-Fil-A is like owning a money printer as an individual owner. Pizza Hut is nearly impossible for even a large company to run profitably.

    My last job was with the largest operator of both Pizza Hut and Wendy’s in the US, they filed for bankruptcy two months after I quit because Pizza Hut was such a loss that even the Wendy’s profits could not cover the losses.

    I currently work with a bunch of CFA operators and no one owns more than two stores and they all seem to do quite well for themselves while paying their employees pretty damn good wages.