The universe of things that I look at and think: “I could probably fix that” is a slowly but surely expanding one. This week, please welcome a Macbook battery replacement and a countertop dishwasher leak fix.
Macbook Pro 2020 - Intel, 2 Thunderbolt Ports (or the A2289 for short)
I got this laptop around October 2020 with the back-to-school promotion. That was probably also the time where my luck ran out, as Apple launched the M1 Macbooks soon afterwards.
After close to 4 years of being used to make memes, churn out documents, watch Youtube video essays and all types of chronically online behaviour, the battery life reduced to a point that became inconvenient, as I’d always have to bring a charger out and pray (in a secular way) that there’d be a power outlet available. The final straw came when I saw the “Service Recommended” indicator appear – I treated this as an omen that it was time to put this battery to rest.
To DIY, or take it to the Apple store?
Yet another omen arrived in the form of a $300+ quote for replacing the battery, based on Apple’s online estimation tool. My personal considerations of being delusional, somewhat frugal and semi-raised on Louis Rossmann Macbook repair videos made DIY a reasonable choice. Your mileage may vary.
I got a battery from https://www.laptopbattery.com.sg/ for $57.13. However, I wouldn’t actually recommend it as the battery that I got reports a very round number of 5000mAh. A little bit too round. I’ll revisit the question of battery-shopping in 4 years’ time if this laptop is still chugging along.
iFixit’s guide is useful, but some parts can be improved
iFixit has excellent guides that I’ve used for other Macbook models and also iPhones. I followed the guide for the A2289 for the most part. However, there is a better orientation for the Macbook at Step 21 when you have to remove the trackpad before removing the batteries.
The iFixit guide shows the following photo for the step where you have to remove the trackpad. The laptop is oriented such that the part with the trackpad is perpendicular to the table/working surface:
The instructions for Step 21 also states the following:
Be sure not to lose the six small washers (two circular and four rectangular) resting on the underside of the trackpad.
Orienting it in the manner shown in the photo seems to greatly increase your chances of dropping the washers that lie on the underside of the trackpad.
Keeping the Macbook parallel to the working surface makes trackpad removal easier. I wedged a squishy tube of sunscreen to keep the display and internals separate, unscrewed the trackpad’s screws, slowly fed the trackpad cable through the gap and gently lowered the trackpad for removal.
This repair took about 1h 45m in total, and most of the time was spent trying to remove the adhesives on the old battery. I tried to be civilised and use isopropyl alcohol (I didn’t have anything else) but ended up using a very thin nail file as a prying tool to get the batteries off.
I’m quite happy with the replacement battery (so far) despite its suspicious battery capacity reporting. I can get about 5-6 hours of use before the battery runs out, which is a huge improvement from whatever it was before.
Random aside: I’ve noticed that my laptop seems to wheeze a lot less and also doesn’t heat up as much as it used to ever since I changed the battery. My laptop’s fan used to randomly start whirring even when nothing demanding was happening. It was loud enough that people would comment on it – something along the lines of “Dude, is your laptop okay?”. After a while I had a stock response of “Yeah, she has asthma.” My laptop was also often too hot to actually ever place it on my lap.
Overall: Had a great time testing my own patience and motor skills. I’ve done some other repairs for other Macbook models, but those were more recreational as they’re old spare laptops. This one had slightly higher stakes as it’s the laptop that I use on a daily basis. I’m glad it worked out fine. The sad part in all of this was not being able to just purchase an original Apple battery and install it myself.
Countertop Dishwasher
My friend’s countertop dishwasher started leaking water – enough to cover the countertop and surrounding floor with water – but somehow was still able to run. Electronics-wise, everything was okay.
We ended up trying to run it, but with the base taken off, so we could see where exactly the leak was coming from. We propped up the dishwasher with 2 chairs. A mop bucket came in handy for catching any leaking water.
There was only one spot that was leaking as that part of the hose had come loose. We went out in search hose clamps and found them for $1. These are ones you can adjust by turning a key. Very cool =)
Very happy with this too, because it’s something that my friend uses 2-3 times a week, so getting this fixed was a Certified Win.
Thinking about labour
The last time I had a long stretch of time entirely in my control was around 2018. The strange thing is that the Singapore school calendar runs from Jan-Dec for junior college, but Singapore universities adhere to the general August-May/June calendar. This creates an 8 month gap between finishing Singapore’s equivalent of high school and starting university.
Times like these tend to involve some kind of new understanding of labour, myself, and negotiating how the way people perceive me changes with it.
Back in 2018, I “interned” in a Big 4 law firm with a few other people who’d also just finished junior college. This is something I never really spoke about. I left it off my CV entirely, because it was a work experience I honestly couldn’t really stand by, but I was afraid that ever speaking about my experience would torpedo any chances I had of a legal career. I was a lot younger, more fearful, and also still thought that I’d be a lawyer.
We were hoping to get some exposure to law, but what we really ended up doing was working on billing clients. Clients tend to be billed on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis. Financial years tend to start in April, so the first quarter of the year is spent preparing a lot of timesheets for billing. The department was largely staffed by Malaysian staff whose work was being billed out many times more than they were receiving in salary (Which was a lot lower compared to Singaporeans, because SGD goes really far when converted to MYR).
The partner in charge said something like “Do you even know English?” to me once in relation to some unbilled time spreadsheet. That wasn’t even the thing that upset me the most. I had cultivated the personality of a non-stick pan by that point, and just replied very literally, “No, I’ll go back to check on [INSERT THING] and follow up with you”. What hardened my resolve to quit was this one time where I saw the partner mock a Malaysian full-timer’s command of English. English was probably this person’s third/fourth language (the first few being Malay, Mandarin and Cantonese). It was especially upsetting because I interacted with this colleague a lot (as a clueless intern), and knew just how many books related to learning English they had at their desk. I could see how hard they were trying, and I was just some random intern who’d been there for a month or so.
I quit after 2 months and started waitressing at a club at the top of Marina Bay Sands (let’s call it the Ship since it looks like one) instead. I got the job because one of the students in the year above me at school also worked there after graduating. I got paid a lot more in hourly terms – going from about $3.75 an hour ($600 a month divided by roughly 20 workdays that were 8 hours each - but the rate was probably worse because of all the unpaid overtime we did) to $12 an hour was a big jump to me. The workplace was nice as most people just treated it like a job. By design, you also couldn’t take your work home with you. I got to see a lot of things I wouldn’t ever have experienced normally. Marina Bay Sands is great for viewing fireworks on National Day as the fireworks stop at roughly the same height as the Ship. I got to try stuff (for free!) that I’d never try otherwise (Ruinart/Dom Perignon/Veuve Clicquot, etc etc).
It had its own downsides, though. I find it hard to go to clubs and enjoy it nowadays. But I really enjoyed getting paid. I did a 2 week stint at the Law Society Pro Bono Services centre, but it was an unpaid thing, so I ended up at the Pro Bono Services place from Mon-Fri, then I’d work Friday 8pm-5am and Saturday 8pm-5am.
In university, I picked up a bunch of ad-hoc research jobs as working at the club didn’t gel with my schedule anymore.
This year is the first time in a very long time (perhaps since I was a kid) where I can just do things I want. I forgot it what it’s like to have a life where I’m not constantly thinking about how to get money.
This is something I’ve been preparing for for a really, really long time. Ever since I started that club job in 2018, I’ve been thinking about the day where I could have uninterrupted time to just spend as I wanted to. I contemplated taking a gap year, until my university made me an offer that was too good to refuse.
Status is a very amorphous thing. I can’t really understand or participate in status games. For instance, having certain names on your work history are supposed to be “good” or “prestigious”, but as that dreadful pre-university Big 4 law firm experience taught me – it doesn’t always mean much. Some people have great branding but display a really special kind of cruelty when they think they can get away with it.
Over the past 5-6 years have really fluctuated in terms of whatever this “status” thing is:
- clueless ‘intern’ in a law firm
- club waitress character arc
- get a full ride scholarship to university
- do poorly for first 2 years in school
- advocate for myself well enough despite my dumpster-fire grades so that the scholarship office says “ok we’ll demote you to some lower tier with less benefits instead” instead of kicking me out right away
- things improve in year 3/4 as I sort some things out, but still not enough to keep it. get kicked from scholarship (sad, a lot of shame, and a lot of anxiety)
- somehow graduate
- study while working after graduation (+ points because I’m working and studying and am therefore Gainfully Occupied)
- intern at government body (- points because I’ve chosen to do an internship instead of a full-time permanent/contract position)
- now am neither working a job or officially in school. (-100 points).
I find it interesting to see how others’ perceptions of me change, since I don’t think I’ve changed that much in terms of my interests and values. I’m still me. One thing that confuses and/or pains me is when I speak to someone and they treat my current situation as a problem that requires solving without appreciating that this is something that I’ve wanted for a long while, or being curious about what I’m doing outside of trying to suss out what my wage labour situation is (uhhh I did a little bit of freelance work?) or what my next career move is. When things like this happen, I wonder what I looked like to them in the past.