Used to carry a truckload of paper service manuals, now I stand in a driveway in Tulsa squinting at a phone screen

Quinn Martinez · 2026-10-15T17:25:07.187185+00:00

Back when I got into this trade, the back seat of my truck held maybe 40 pounds of service manuals, and if a customer called about a dryer I didn't have a book for, I just told them I'd swing by later that week. I would read the wiring diagram at the kitchen table the night before, highlight the pins, then drive out and mostly get it right. Now I pull into a driveway in Tulsa, punch the model number into my phone, and the whole schematic shows up in about 10 seconds. I won't lie, the first time I fixed a control board without opening a book, I felt like I was cheating. What bugs me is that I don't memorize stuff anymore, so when my phone dies on a job I stand there like a deer in headlights. A guy I trained with still keeps his old manuals in a milk crate and swears he's faster with paper. So how do you all handle it, do you still write anything down by hand or is it all screen time for you now?

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Used to carry a truckload of paper service manuals, now I stand in a driveway in Tulsa squinting at a phone screen | Appliance Repairers - Rigidtalk