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Friends' computer troubles
StoreTags: jfgi, geek squad synd
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Seems like as soon as I meet someone and they find out I'm a "computer whiz" they suddenly get a look like a dog to a fire hydrant. It's not long before they start describing some stupid problem they're having because they're to lazy, ignorant, and stupid to use google or RTFM. Seriously, if these were interesting problems I wouldn't mind but they almost always involve an inkjet printer, a Linksys WRT54G, or Outlook. Fortunately I know nothing about Outlook.
Sometimes I wish I had a spine. I would just tell them to fuck off, to wipe their own asses. Every nerd I've ever known was self-taught. Maybe I just shouldn't tell people what my area of expertise is. Hard to avoid it when I'm at work, and that's fine cos it's on company time. But chrissakes, just cos I'm a PHP monkey doesn't mean I'm the volunteer geek squad.
I want to just start telling them I charge 50 bucks an hour, minus the number of the first google hit with the answer (25 minimum). What do you do? | |
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05/04/08
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infradead
lol..
i'm now tech support at my favorite place to eat.. its a small family owned bussiness and my wife and i are now regulars as well as friends of the owners..
so far i've set up a comp in back with wireless for the kids to play webkins and put in so custom ethernet cables for the POS and front computer..
the comp in back needs a fresh install of windows to get it sorted but i told them we'll have to trade feed me and i fix it.. which is cool..
its worse when folks figure out i work for the cable company and ask for free tv..
05/04/08
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deltasleep
thankfully, as a teacher, I don't find lots of people trying to get a free education from me.
oh, wait.
05/04/08
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Zanf
breakscience said: "Zanf - I don't think you want that...
"I was wondering if you could take a look at my festering, disease ridden vagina for me? I have talked to a few people and they couldn't fix it.""
I would so be like the twins from Dead Ringers that it would scare the fuck out of them.
05/04/08
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license
deltasleep said: "My new rule is, I will fix anything but your printer/scanner/copier. I also want nothing to do with FUCKING NOVELL LOGONS.
I use logmein.com to fix my parents computer. they are always doing dumb shit like their little lapdog hitting a random hot key and rotating the display 90 degrees. They're the kind of computer users who have an emachine with the store stickers still on it."
LOL. Yes. Inkjet printers == evil. I want nothing to do with them. If they want some shit printed that bad they can go to Kinko's or Office max, I'm not gonna help their cheap asses with that.
Also, on a side note, my wife kept leaving her Inspiron notebook open at home. Eventually the cat got in the habit of warming her butt on the keyboard. At first she would just find weird shit open when she came home, like the computer would be in the middle of a game of Diner Dash for apparently no reason. After a while the Enter key started going loose, then fell off, which gradually became more difficult and then impossible to reattach. At this point we started poking, and then later, jabbing the rubber nipple which was once protected by the flimsy enter key. Eventually the nipple lost its sensitivity, at which point I realized it was time to get a new keyboard. But me? Pay 50 bucks for a replacement keyboard? Hah! I found an app for remapping keys in the registry and now the seldom used Right Shift is the new Enter key. Problem circumvented!
Moral of the story? If you have pets, close your damn notebook when you're not using it.
05/04/08
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tunalicker
I look at and talk with people about the cost of hardware and the cost of time for the work.
I still get work, but no more free work. Free work is for independently wealthy....
I figured out networking to the LAN, WAN, WIFI and security setups and I'm NEVER telling people that I can do that.
Teaching basics of HTML drives me insane enough.
05/04/08
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Roshi
license said: "At this point we started poking, and then later, jabbing the rubber nipple which was once protected by the flimsy enter key. Eventually the nipple lost its sensitivity, at which point I realized it was time to get a new keyboard. But me? Pay 50 bucks for a replacement keyboard? Hah! I found an app for remapping keys in the registry and now the seldom used Right Shift is the new Enter key. Problem circumvented!
Moral of the story? If you have pets, close your damn notebook when you're not using it."
LOL, at story, but the best part was the nipple sensitivity loss.
05/05/08
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opulentaudio
self-taught nerd checking in.....
fix your own 'thingy'
05/05/08
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quip
i am a network admin and graphics/multimedia/music tech teacher.
so people telling me "i have lost this file" "this won't print" and "i have forgotten my password" is all i ever hear.
i am thinking of becoming a paramedic. unconcious people don't need computers.
or ask dumb questions.
05/06/08
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gamatam
I used to work in electronics for an irrigation company, the staff would regularly walk in to our office with grungy looking radios/tvs/toasters etc. My boss was not a patient man (constant coffee and cigarettes) and i was surprised at first when accepted everything that came in with a "We'll fix it as soon as we have some free time" and put it on a shelf.
Of course we NEVER had free time (except for playing Leisure Suit Larry on an XT) and whenever they came back to check on their beloved appliance, we would give them the stock answer as above as instructed by god. Eventually they would walk in to the office in a huff and take it off somewhere else to fix - problem solved.
On the computer side I normally take the hatchet approach to fixing someone else's PC: reformat and re-install, some people don't like this approach..
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