This is why you don’t do computer work for family, friends, and their friends.

pwjohnston

I’ve worked in this industry for over 10 years and you’d think I’d have learned this lesson by now. It’s always worth repeating.

DON’T do work for friends, family, and their friends, just don’t do it!

My girlfriend works for a small law office. On at least three occasions prior to this her Dell Optiplex 320 from 2007 running WinXP has crashed with NTLDR problems leaving her with no computer for the day. Amazingly when she swaps out machines, there are three of these in this particular office, it works and some how the next day all machines are working. Well that wasn’t the case a few weeks ago. The boss was on vacation and she got a

"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\hal.dll.
Please re-install a copy of the above file."

Not that big of a deal, but.

Now keep in mind the longer you work in computers you’ll get a little cocky. I’ve walked my parents through replacing the hard drive and reinstalling Windows over the phone, but then again, they actually do what I tell them to. But again, don’t get cocky, just don’t.

So back to the hal.dll issue. The boss is out all week and my girlfriend is freaking ou that she’s not going to get any work done. I’m hesitant to help, but I’m thinking no big deal, we will pull the drive, back it up, repair or wipe the OS. Maybe replace the drive if necessary. I goto the office a look things over.

This is when we find out the state of the office.
1. There are no drops from the ceiling. All cabling is ran either strewn across the floor or tacked onto the wall.
2. The computers are old, real old. 2007/2008 running WinXP (SP3, thankfully).
3. They have no centralized server or backup at all.
4. All printers are locally attached. The MFP is not networked and the boss doesn’t know it can be used as a printer.
5. I could go on.


Talk to the boss on the phone and let her know that this is a one time thing. She helped look at my rental contract for no charge, I’ll do a little of this on the side no charge. BUT SHE HAS TO get a regular IT team to come and take care of her network, all her machines need to be upgraded, and the network/backup situation needs to be sorted out. I can’t do this because I have a full time job. She agrees. . . She also asks me to look at her computer since it’s running slow. I told her I’d update the A/V and run Malware Bytes.

So I do the simple stuff. Pickup a HDD dock and external USB from best buy. Back up the dead machine, no problem. We can’t repair my girlfriends machine because my WXP VL disk is not giving us the option to repair. I’m unwilling to do the reinstall from that disk since well it’s not theirs. They cannot find their media. My girlfriend resolves that she will bring her personal laptop in till the boss buys her a new computer. Another BIG mistake. DON’T DO THIS!

I look at the boss lady’s computer. A/V isn’t installed properly. Finish the install that pops up, dl definitions, scan, dl malware bytes, definitions, scan. Nothing found. This machine is slow as crap. This took forever.

Write the boss lady what work was done and give her the receipt for purchases to be reimbursed. Tell her she needs to find an IT team and start working on a budget/plan to refresh the office and get things in order. No big deal, I leave.

Problem.

Last Sunday the boss lady has court this week and needs to print a bunch of things off. She cannot print. She’s worked with the computer to try and get it to print and it will not work. Instead of copying things to her usb key and printing them from the MFP she’s going to kinkos to print…

Tuesday I goto our data center to deploy 3x xSeries servers and a small SAN for our new client Ford in our vSphere. My girlfriends boss is freaking out on my girlfriend because “I screwed up her computer and now she cannot print.” On the way home from the dc I troubleshoot my girlfriend over the phone. The printer is not showing up because the SPOOLER SERVICE HAS BEEN DISABLED!!!! WTF? We enable that. Now there is a printer. I have her send a test page and it just hangs, no error. She checks NOT usb printer cable but the ******* PARALLEL cable attached to the computer. . . WTF, I haven’t seen a parallel 1284 on a computer since at least 2005. It’s not working.

He boss says I HAVE to come fix her computer immediate because I screwed it up. Now I’m glad I never charged because I don’t feel like I want to deal with this lady any longer. She told my gf today,

“She said she won't talk to me about you anymore, but yet she kept on talking about you and how it's ****** up that you wanted her to think that you were doing her a favor. She said it's unprofessional and she needs someone she can do business with.”

Wow, just wow. Not that this is something anyone who has worked tech support/ desktop support has never heard, but remember I never touched anything with her printer. If I had I would have fixed it or told her if it could not be fixed. AND I told her she needs a professional team to come in and manager her IT for her. . .

I’ve worked for lawyers before, I worked for friends before, I was hesitant to do this, but I didn’t listen to my good judgment and just not get involved. Keep that in mind when someone wants you to do something for them outside of work.

danny069

The moral of the story, all lawyers are assholes lol

jamesleecoleman

I think it's safe to do computer work for people who are understanding and cool headed about things.

If you haven't seen them under stressful situations to see how they react, I think it's safe to say that they should be left alone.

That boss lady should have been more understanding and drama free about you helping out.

shodown

I dont' even take law firms as clients. Even if they call me. They can find things in the contract to screw you and you have to find a lawyer to straighten it out. If they insist I charge them way over and even if they do sign on the dotted line You barley make a profit as needy as they are.

GAngel

danny069 wrote: »

The moral of the story, all lawyers are assholes lol

My other half is a lawyer!!!!


But i concur.