6 Reasons Your Computer Guy Hates You

I have this all the time from my super paranoid, step mother in-law (thank f*&king Friday I'm not directly related), and her bloody ancient PII 400, "can it go any faster, can you clean off the junk from my system, why is it running so slow?", hmmm...no, yes, and because it's older than the bronze age in computing years.

I've wasted at least a day of my life working that system over, "will my old job be able to remote into my computer from India, after you had reloaded and wiped all the settings", will this Word for windows 3.1 work on XP" (OMFG!!!).

And then the bare faced cheek to ask me to figure out a phone that a. I don't bloody own, and b. can't be bothered to learn about as I don't own an Evo, but I got the wireless sharing to work...which brought up a whole bunch of other stupid questions "why isn't it as fast as my DSL connection that I got rid of because of the wireless hotspot feature, can it go faster, how secure is the hotspot feature?", err...it's a cell phone on a shit network, it will go as fast as I can throw it, and it's a fully open hotspot, anyone can get onto it!!!

I basically dread every time we have to go over there and "visit" (fix the laptop/ancient artifact PC/Sprint Evo), and I always wince when she starts a question about anything computer related.
 
Kaitian said:
To everyone in this thread that have gone over to people's places to fix anything software related. I present to you a wonderful and free tool. Logmein. Like the magnifying glass example with the woman which this could have been troubleshooted over the internet, I have used this for many people and it saves gas/money/time/etc.

The downside, it makes you be called up more often by people who are prone to their own stupidity.
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I've repaired with remote access. Depending on what you use it can be annoying with lag and restarting to lose control. Talking to someone over the phone to fix something was by far my worse experience ever. So slow and drawn out with so much confusion.

michelito said:
Had a friend who asked me to fix her computer... asked her for her password so I could, you know, log on and take care of it...

- "Oh no I can't give you my password, I have confidential information on my laptop"
- "Here you go then" (handing her back her laptop)
- "What? You're not going to fix it?"
- "..."
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Asking the retard 20 times to enter the password. Been there, done that. She conveniently disappeared several times while talking the phone.
 
Great read, all very true.

I think #6 should be #1 tho.

"Future Computer Problems Are Not Automatically My Fault"

This is the single reason why I rarely help friends and family these days.
 
The only people I do free work for are my neighbors. Between the two of them I can borrow almost anything I might need, ranging from power tools to heavy-duty excavating equipment. In the fall my neighbor will inevitably ask if I can fix his computer, and I alway say "Hell yes!" because then a few months later he plows the snow from my driveway. I don't even have to ask. My lazy work-from-home-when-it-snows ass just wakes up to a perfectly clear driveway.

This is the only time in my life I've never minded the "hey, can you take a look at my computer" questions.
 
#5. Expect One More Person for Dinner


This is the straw that broke the camel's back and I started charging people. I had a cousin who needed to be talked through reimaging her computer--on the phone, on my day off work. When the process became lengthy (due in large part to her not being able to follow simple and literal instructions like "press the F8 key"), she got testy about it and complained that it was taking a really long time and that she had things she wanted to do (as if I didn't?). That was the last time I ever helped her. If she wants help again, she can send a gift card to my amazon account.
 
Really it all comes down to the perception "if someone has something you don't, they have to share"
That comes to talent or whatever. A good example is I purchased a 20' trailer to hauld cars. I'm a car guy and I like to buy cars broke, fix and resell. It is a nice trailer and it was expensive. But now that I have a trailer everyone that wants to move or move a bunch of their junk; guess who they call?
They never think about how they are using up someone elses time and resources. Their mind set is you owe them.
 
fattypants said:
#5. Expect One More Person for Dinner


This is the straw that broke the camel's back and I started charging people. I had a cousin who needed to be talked through reimaging her computer--on the phone, on my day off work. When the process became lengthy (due in large part to her not being able to follow simple and literal instructions like "press the F8 key"), she got testy about it and complained that it was taking a really long time and that she had things she wanted to do (as if I didn't?). That was the last time I ever helped her. If she wants help again, she can send a gift card to my amazon account.
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Me too, I got tired of doing shit for free on my time!
 
Dr. Righteous said:
Really it all comes down to the perception "if someone has something you don't, they have to share"
That comes to talent or whatever. A good example is I purchased a 20' trailer to hauld cars. I'm a car guy and I like to buy cars broke, fix and resell. It is a nice trailer and it was expensive. But now that I have a trailer everyone that wants to move or move a bunch of their junk; guess who they call?
They never think about how they are using up someone elses time and resources. Their mind set is you owe them.
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That's why you charge them. Time is money. Money is life.

There is an old story about a multi-million dollar power plant that had mysteriously ground to a halt. All efforts to restart it had failed and an expert was brought in. After studying the problem for a few minutes he took a hammer and hit one of the valves. With a rumble, the plant came back to life. Incredulous glances were shared, grateful cries and high-fives were exchanged. Later, the expert’s bill arrived for the amount of $10,000.00. The outraged executive in charge thought “All he did was hit a valve with a hammer, this bill is ridiculous.” he asked for an itemized breakdown and the consultant responded with a bill that read: “Hitting valve with hammer $10.00. Knowing which valve to hit: $9,990.00.”
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Kaitian said:
To everyone in this thread that have gone over to people's places to fix anything software related. I present to you a wonderful and free tool. Logmein. Like the magnifying glass example with the woman which this could have been troubleshooted over the internet, I have used this for many people and it saves gas/money/time/etc.

The downside, it makes you be called up more often by people who are prone to their own stupidity.

On my own experience, fixing friends or family, I have given up on because on occasions I don't get paid by them because it's out of my "gratitude". So I stopped offering my services for these people.
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RDP would require your users to have something faster than dialup. which unfortunately most of my family either still uses juno's free dialup or can't understand how it's cheaper to get $20 DSL lite instead of paying $9.99 and $20 for a phone line.
 
I thought it was your typical IT nerd rant (but this time, 10x not as funny)

The best part though.... was the little funny picture comment he put in between each #.

I laughed hard at the 2girl1cup reference with the 2 little kids at the PC, ROFL!
 
ROFL!

You just told me to wipe it. Did you not know what that means? Because when I said "lose everything," I didn't mean, "lose just the bad stuff." I meant every motherfucking thing.
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