When you need a new TV, it is a good idea to talk to an expert to make sure the one you pick out will meet your needs.

What would you do if you worked for an AirB&B owner who bought a new TV, but it didn’t have the features that she needed?

That is what happened to the handyman in this story, but he was able to help out the owners.

Keep reading for all the details.

Well, that’s a first.

Got a call from a repeat customer, “please come and set up the new TV in our Airbnb cabin”. Okey dokey.

Bit of a backstory first, I’d set up the previous TV – a “dumb” TV with no apps and no internet access – no wi-fi, no ethernet port, but A/V input, antenna input, composite input, and HDMI input.

Previous guests had asked about Netflix et al, and the customer (before they were my customer) added a Chromecast to the TV so guests could cast their phones or tablets.

This isn’t a smart move.

On with the story – Chromecasts are now deprecated, so instead of asking my advice, customer’s husband runs off to the nearest Joyce Mayne (big-box appliance retailer) and buys the cheapest TCL he could find.

Salesdroid assures him all is well, log into your google account, download latest app versions and off you go.

He didn’t inform the buyer that this TV *must* be logged into a google account to be used as anything more than a free-to-air receiver.

What a weird setup.

Regardless of your Netflix account name, amazon account name, Disney account name, or any streaming app name, the *TV* had to be logged in at all times. Log in once, you can’t log out but you can change/add another account to use.

But you can’t log out except at a computer with a browser where you can access your google account, choose “devices” and force a logout that way. Google won’t let you log out of an android device on the device itself.

This is very valuable data for Google.

So, having discovered that choice fact – Google pays manufacturer to make sure an account is logged in at all times to slurp up viewing data, I inform the customer.

She starts to get cranky (understandably so, but at her husband, not me), and then I show them via demonstration that if you “remove” the last account, it forces a reset, all apps gone, all preferences gone, all TV channels gone.

You have to re-set and then re-scan for digital TV channels whenever a guest leaves, because you can’t leave them signed in (never seen a rental where the guest signs out before they leave), and then you have to log in again to download the default app updates, and download the non-default apps.

So, you’re back to where you started (I told the customer to CALL ME first, next time she needed a new TV).

There is really no good option here.

Can’t leave it logged in with the guest’s account, can’t leave it logged in with the owner’s account (can’t have guests watching on the owner’s account), can’t remove the last account without it triggering a re-set.

Customer is now very firmly stating that she’s sick of this (I agree), she’s fed up with this (I agree) and wants the old TV back, with zero access for streaming apps.

I support her decision (the AirBnB is her business, not the husband’s) and so he goes off to get the old Sony.

He’s a bit cranky by now, having been over-ruled, so he fetches his battery drill to re-attach the TV’s feet, and pulls the trigger full on, driving the screws home in 0.75 seconds and rat-a-tat-a-tat when they hit home.

He helped with the reinstallation.

I tell him as gently as possible that the electronics inside the machine really don’t like that kind of vibration and he hands the drill to me, and I use a little discretion on the trigger to drive the screws in gently.

So, now the old TV is back, checked and tested for reception, all operational and I call the customer from the adjacent room.

“Hey , it’s all working as you requested, it’s not a problem any more!”

She comes in, starts crying, turns away and says “Thank you, please send me an invoice”

Whew.

Wow, she is relieved to be done with this mess. And hopefully the customers will be happy with their TV viewing.

Read on to see what the people in the comments on Reddit have to say about this situation.

I’m not sure why this is necessary.

This commenter has a good idea.

Yeah, this would be a simple option.

This is a fact.

Yeah, this is the simple solution.

All of this could have been avoided with proper communication.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.