WestWords
By Marvin West
His Bio

Good doctor makes house calls

The good doctor really does make house calls.

Juan Barbosa Gallego arrives with a reassuring smile. His personality is perfect for his mission. He is calm, soft-spoken and confident he can produce a cure. He conveys an encouraging message: most viruses and other afflictions are not as bad as they seem.

Juan Barbosa Gallego takes on tough challenges, the crashes and smashes, even malfunctions and ailments of old age.

Juan is a computer repair technician. His workbench and test equipment are in San Antonio Tlayacapan on the north shore of Lake Chapala in the state of Jalisco, a short Sunday drive from big city Guadalajara. Area laptops in need of attention are often dumped in his lap. He goes to larger problems.

House calls make sense. Simple tools in a bag are easier to carry than computer towers, monitors, cables and keyboards.

Señor Gallego says his first task, almost every time, is breaking down barriers.

"People with computer problems tend to be very defensive. A computer that won't work is a serious frustration so the owners are often in a bad mood."

He says they assume the worst, that the sickness is fatal, that they will lose all stored data, even Elvis music and pictures of grandchildren.

"They are not at all sure I can fix their computer and, even if I do, they doubt that it will still be working tomorrow. They are absolutely certain I will charge too much."

Gallego smiles at the scene he has described. It is real. He has been there many times.

"It is so funny when the husband blames the wife for breaking the computer. The charge, sometimes whispered but often out loud, goes like this: 'It was working when I used it.'"

I met Juan Barbosa Gallego under trying circumstances. My high-mileage Toshiba Satellite 2405 with the Intel Pentium 4 processor, construction partner on two books and many monthly MexConnect magazine columns, wouldn't start or stop. It wouldn't load Windows XP and it wouldn't stop humming and turn out its little lights.

My attitude may have been a bit defensive: (1) Be careful, there's stuff on that hard drive that I really need; (2) Don't start rebuilding the computer without giving me a cost estimate.

Juan gave a nice nod of sympathy and understanding and promised to call with his diagnosis. His skeptical new customer retreated to Jocotepec. The message beat me home. Your computer is ready.

I do believe Juan Barbosa Gallego is an honest man. If you ask correct questions, you get direct answers. How much is the bill? Three hundred pesos. What was wrong? Not much. How long did it take you to fix it? Less than two minutes.

Gallego enjoyed my reaction. He lives off flat fees. A 90-second fix is 300 pesos. So is a six-hour struggle.

"It is not the customer's fault if it takes me all day to find what is wrong."

Most of Gallego's clients are Americans and Canadians.

"My Mexican friends think I am too expensive. When I say 300 pesos, they ask if I'll settle for 100. Some tell me their neighbor will fix it for less."

Gallego does not match the Mexican stereotype. He opens his shop 10 minutes early. He keeps appointments and phones if he slips off schedule and is going to be late.

In fact, Gallego, 41, is not Mexican. . .

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(Marvin West, mostly retired after just 42 years with Scripps Howard newspapers, is senior partner in an international communications consulting company. This column is from his forthcoming book, "Mexico? What you doing in Mexico?" He invites )

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