This is actually my second attempt at this. I started a complementary commentary to Addison’s excellent piece last night, but it turned into a grumpy generational rant. I don’t want to go there, because that ultimately accomplishes nothing but contributing to social divisions. However, I had an experience today that I think adds something worth mulling over.
A week or so ago, my daughter and I made the alarming discovery that the bottom heating element on my oven had stopped functioning. I was truly mystified by this; it is a brand that is generally considered reliable, has only had occasional use in the slightly less than three years I’ve owned it, and – since I am by no means wealthy enough to be wasteful, or even anything that could be considered even remotely wealthy by anyone’s estimation – it has been kept clean and otherwise treated kindly, because durable goods are supposed to be, well, durable.
I was quite nonplussed by this development, suddenly seeing my extensive plans for holiday cooking and baking (I will have both the kids this Christmas season, though the jury is still out on whether that is a blessing or a curse) figuratively go up in smoke. The warranty has long expired, the information on factory service was altogether discouraging, and independent appliance repairmen are a thing of the distant past. So I had two choices: Either acquiesce in hauling the damn thing across town to the factory service center, pay a considerable fraction of its original price for diagnosis, and then wait several weeks for them to inform that I would have to replace it anyway; or crack it open, and see what I could do.
That’s not quite the long shot it might sound; in another life I was, among other things, a Level 8 automotive technician, so I am not intimidated by the relatively simple mechanics of a small electric oven. Working methodically as I was taught long ago, I got the outer shell off the oven, discovered a shorted-out connector, cleaned that up, tested to make sure the problem was resolved, then reassembled the oven and restored it to its place of honor in the kitchen, ready for duty. Cost: nothing but time, and a couple of minor scrapes on my knuckle from the edge of one of the sheet metal panels.
A little while later I was relating the story of this minor adventure to a friend of mine, who was surprised. “I had one of the other models of those ovens, it burned out after a couple of years, and I was told they’re basically non-repairable, except for replacing a light bulb or one of the knobs,” he said. “How did you do it?”
“I just did it,” I said. “I mean, I have basic mechanical skills.”
“Well, yeah, but they told me you can’t even really open it,” he insisted.
“It was kind of a pain in the ass, true,” I agreed. Which it was; the entire casing of the oven was three stamped and folded sheet metal panels kind of origami-ed together and held in place by several dozen short screws. Taking it apart wasn’t too difficult, but getting it back together required about half an hour of three-axis finagling and a lot of swear words. Not the worst repair job I’ve ever had, but certainly not the easiest, either.
As Addison Del Mastro puts it in his article, it’s hard to escape the feeling that things just don’t work anymore, and he implies that there’s no way to escape it. Drenching us with a constant stream of substandard garbage, whether it’s everyday products like light bulbs (we all know the story about the manufacturer’s cartel that decided to start making them shittier, so that customers would have to buy replacements more often), small appliances, our electronic gizmos, complex machines like automobiles, or even basic services and the quality of online content that bombards our brains like radiation, everything is just crap, enforced obsolescence designed to keep us constantly consuming goods. We get into the cycle when our things break, or our fast fashion clothing pops a seam, and then it becomes a rote habit. We buy a new smartphone every time the new model is introduced, because...we don’t know why, actually, we just do.
If I was a less patient (or less stubborn) person, and if I didn’t have a modicum of tinkering skill – in other words, if I was most people – I would have not thought twice before going to the appliance store, picking up a new oven, and using the box it came in to discard the old, nonfunctional one. All for the sake of a single compromised wire connector half the size of a fingernail that was literally restored to like-new condition by “unplug it, brush it off, and plug it back in again.”
For the sake of our own financial well-being and peace of mind, and for the sake of the environment that we are choking with ever-growing mountains of complex waste, we need to find a better way, and a way to change attitudes, particularly among the younger generation – here’s where that whole thing comes into the picture – who have never known anything other than the way things are, and have no context not to believe that it’s not only normal, but preferable.
As if on cue, just as I wrapped up my adventure in small appliance repair, I discovered the weekly Inside Climate News newsletter (written by @kileyprice.bsky.social) that featured an article about the small but gradually growing trend of “repair cafes,” where communities gather to do pretty much exactly what I just did – but in a way that passes along the knowledge and helps to change the toxic consumer mindset. This is the way: Breaking down the monolith of Big Tech Capitalism one tap of the chisel at a time. If such a thing exists in my area, or if someone would be inspired to start one, I would surely get in on it.
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