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| A Broken Laptop in Indonesia, and No Repair Shop in Sight | A Broken Laptop in Indonesia, and No Repair Shop in Sight |
| (about 11 hours later) | |
| WHEN I was practicing medicine, I used to give lectures all over the world. Now, most of my travel is focused on developing medical education programs and attending scientific congresses, as well as researching books that I write. | WHEN I was practicing medicine, I used to give lectures all over the world. Now, most of my travel is focused on developing medical education programs and attending scientific congresses, as well as researching books that I write. |
| I’m kind of a control freak. That’s not good, especially when traveling for business, when everything that can go wrong often really does. | I’m kind of a control freak. That’s not good, especially when traveling for business, when everything that can go wrong often really does. |
| I was in Bali, Indonesia, and my trip was going very well until about the third day, when my laptop computer broke down. I needed it for work, and like everyone who has experienced a broken computer, I felt out of control and out of touch. That’s not a good feeling for me. | I was in Bali, Indonesia, and my trip was going very well until about the third day, when my laptop computer broke down. I needed it for work, and like everyone who has experienced a broken computer, I felt out of control and out of touch. That’s not a good feeling for me. |
| My first instincts were to just dump the computer, ship it home to Oregon for repair or buy a new computer somewhere in Indonesia. Each of those ideas had its own drawbacks, so I finally decided to try to get the thing fixed in Bali. At the time, Bali had a good electronic infrastructure for commerce, but not everyone was as plugged in as we are in the United States. I still figured there must be a few computer repair technicians available somewhere in Bali who could help me out. | My first instincts were to just dump the computer, ship it home to Oregon for repair or buy a new computer somewhere in Indonesia. Each of those ideas had its own drawbacks, so I finally decided to try to get the thing fixed in Bali. At the time, Bali had a good electronic infrastructure for commerce, but not everyone was as plugged in as we are in the United States. I still figured there must be a few computer repair technicians available somewhere in Bali who could help me out. |
| The hotel front desk directed my driver to a computer dealer. We drove out of the hotel district, and cruised through neighborhoods crammed with shops for baskets, teak furniture and kites. When we passed some beautifully manicured rice fields, I really thought I had made a poor decision, since we were in rural Indonesia. We finally got to the computer store, and a woman there directed us to the computer repair part of the establishment, which was in a shed packed with pool tables. It looked to me like the most out-of-control high-tech service center anywhere in the world. It was like a computer graveyard, with parts strewn all over the place. To say I was a little concerned is an understatement. | The hotel front desk directed my driver to a computer dealer. We drove out of the hotel district, and cruised through neighborhoods crammed with shops for baskets, teak furniture and kites. When we passed some beautifully manicured rice fields, I really thought I had made a poor decision, since we were in rural Indonesia. We finally got to the computer store, and a woman there directed us to the computer repair part of the establishment, which was in a shed packed with pool tables. It looked to me like the most out-of-control high-tech service center anywhere in the world. It was like a computer graveyard, with parts strewn all over the place. To say I was a little concerned is an understatement. |
| No one seemed to speak English, but an older man finally pointed to a teenage boy who apparently could help me. The young man quickly said my computer wasn’t booting up, which didn’t give me much confidence, since I already knew that. But I asked him if he thought he could fix it. He smiled and took my laptop. | No one seemed to speak English, but an older man finally pointed to a teenage boy who apparently could help me. The young man quickly said my computer wasn’t booting up, which didn’t give me much confidence, since I already knew that. But I asked him if he thought he could fix it. He smiled and took my laptop. |
| Instead of using that magic electronic tester that I saw computer repair people use at my shop back home, this young man began tapping on my computer’s plastic shell with his fingers. It reminded me of how I used to check the backs of my older patients for pneumonia. He then put his ear down on the computer’s surface, which made my blood pressure rise even more. I could not figure out what this young man was doing since he was doing absolutely nothing high tech. It was really more like he was performing a deep Balinese massage on my computer. I nearly lost my mind when he started to take it apart. Screws were all over the place, and he was jiggling wires and jamming connections together. I thought everything on my computer was lost. | Instead of using that magic electronic tester that I saw computer repair people use at my shop back home, this young man began tapping on my computer’s plastic shell with his fingers. It reminded me of how I used to check the backs of my older patients for pneumonia. He then put his ear down on the computer’s surface, which made my blood pressure rise even more. I could not figure out what this young man was doing since he was doing absolutely nothing high tech. It was really more like he was performing a deep Balinese massage on my computer. I nearly lost my mind when he started to take it apart. Screws were all over the place, and he was jiggling wires and jamming connections together. I thought everything on my computer was lost. |
| But then he put the cover back, flipped the switch, and everything was fixed. Best of all, nothing was lost. I would have paid him anything, but he only asked for 20,000 rupiah, which was at the time about $3.18 in American dollars. I gave him much more. | |
| The computer worked like a charm for years after his repair. But even more important is that I learned that sometimes you simply can’t control everything. Sometimes you have to trust the most unlikely of people. It’s a good lesson to learn, especially when you are on the road. | The computer worked like a charm for years after his repair. But even more important is that I learned that sometimes you simply can’t control everything. Sometimes you have to trust the most unlikely of people. It’s a good lesson to learn, especially when you are on the road. |
By Gideon Bosker, as told to Joan Raymond. E-mail: joan.raymond@nytimes.com | By Gideon Bosker, as told to Joan Raymond. E-mail: joan.raymond@nytimes.com |
| This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: | |
| Correction: July 23, 2013 | |
An earlier version of this column gave an outdated conversion of Indonesian rupiah to American dollars. Twenty thousand rupiah at Monday’s exchange rate is about $2, not $3.18. (The author of the column used a conversion that was accurate at the time.) |