OJ and the Job to be Done

Okay since I have missed the OJ bandwagon, I may as well admit that I am talking about an incident a couple of weeks ago when my son spilled orange juice (OJ) over my laptop keyboard.

As a result a number of keys did not work (although I could copy and paste!) and had a deadline then next day that had to be met.

Fortunately it was early in the morning and I took it to the local computer shop to have a look at, I had then realised that it may be better to a new computer rather than replace the current one so headed over to a well-known seller to see what they had.

The results I had were completely different – I spoke to the saleswoman gave her my budget (which she ignored) and after 5 minutes when she realised that I was serious about having a budget she came up with a cost.  Then told me that I would have to wait 3 hours while they switched it on, checked for virus and then would pass it over the the computer repair shop to complete the file transfer.

I walked out – there was no point wasting her time any further.

Went back to the repair shop and was told that I would need to have a new keyboard and that would be ready in three days time.

So we ordered the part and I bought a £10 keyboard.

It was not the ideal solution but it allowed me to meet my deadline and the repair was still cheaper than buying a new PC.

This case works quite well with the JTBD jargon of hiring a solution – for me immediate job to be done was completing my work and I would have paid more for a faster solution. Hiring a short term solution (the keyboard) worked best in this situation as it was the only way to literally get the job done.

I was going to entitle this post when a keyboard competes with an brand new Asus, but to be honest a failure to listen, inflexible policies and unforeseen extras meant that really there was no competition.

But more importantly when I do come to buy another computer, I know where not to go.