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Five reasons to avoid giving friends and family tech support | ZDNet

i need to start doing that so i can stop getting asked

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exampasser

demonfurbie wrote: »

Five reasons to avoid giving friends and family tech support | ZDNet

i need to start doing that so i can stop getting asked

1+

I can relate to “If I fix one thing, any future problem I will end up getting the blame for” , there is someone that I know that wants to to fix her computer but I've been declining to do so knowing that I would get nonstop phone calls for every minor thing that comes up afterwords and will spread rumors that it's my fault.

Aldur

Oh yes, I have been there all too often.

The best part is that my family thinks that since I work in IT that I know how to fix computers. Granted, I know my way around a PC, but I work with routers and firewalls... Not desktop support. But trying to explain this results in blank stares...

Just the other day I'm visiting my parents and my grandma just hands me her cell phone. It's her neighbor who's having trouble with a windows program that keeps asking him to put in the apps CD... I let out a long sigh, ask what the error says, google the error, and send him the link of how to uninstall the unwanted app...

But seriously, who hands somebody a phone with a mystery caller on the other line looking for help with their PC... oh yea, grandma does

Webmaster

Aldur wrote: »

The best part is that my family thinks that since I work in IT that I know how to fix computers. Granted, I know my way around a PC, but I work with routers and firewalls... Not desktop support. But trying to explain this results in blank stares...

I know those stares... from family, friends and even my doctor, dentist, and accountant, usually with a comment like "but you work with computers right?" in turn sometimes yet typically combined with typing an invisible keyboard in air. Muggles...

Ryan82

Yep, because we work in IT we are expected to be knowledgeable on anything that powers on. Can you fix my blackberry?

Aldur

Webmaster wrote: »

I know those stares... from family, friends and even my doctor, dentist, and accountant, usually with a comment like "but you work with computers right?" in turn sometimes yet typically combined with typing an invisible keyboard in air. Muggles...

Oh yes, the classic invisible keyboard in the air, love it! Classic sign of somebody who knows nothing about computers.

I know that exact feeling of trying to explain what I do for a living to friends and family. To this day my mom still has no idea what I do. I use to try to explain it. But telling people that I "Produce coureware for high end networking equipment that is used by people to train and acquire technical certification and knowledge" results in a very long deer in the headlights look. So I've resulted to "Technical Writer" which results in the inevitable "Oh you work with computers". At which point I nod and agree with.

However, this tactic does result in "Can you fix my friend/neighbor/kids/invading alien's computer?" all too often

demonfurbie

2 weeks ago i got a plastic bag with parts ... turned out it was a psp and they wanted me to put it back together.

why they took it apart i dont know

Aldur

demonfurbie wrote: »

why they took it apart i dont know

I think this sums up what is generally wrong with the world... Curiosity is usually a good thing but people fail to think about the consequences before acting on an impulse...

Devilsbane

exampasser wrote: »

I can relate to “If I fix one thing, any future problem I will end up getting the blame for” , there is someone that I know that wants to to fix her computer but I've been declining to do so knowing that I would get nonstop phone calls for every minor thing that comes up afterwords and will spread rumors that it's my fault.

My ex girlfriend had 2 computers that sat side by side and shared a printer. Anytime they wanted to print they had to unplug and replug. I set up a shared printer for this and it worked great for over a month. We still talked and she told me that the printer I created stopped working but they were able to print the old way and that it was acceptable. A few more weeks go by and I get the phone call that her parents were [this is family friendly, so I'll say very upset] that it wouldn't print at all.

Being the nice guy that I am, I offer to come over that night and take a look at it. The first thing I noticed is that the printer is configured for offline printing. Uncheck that and it starts mostly working but still stalls out. The hosting machine was heavily infected with everything under the sun and apparently had something that would stop the sprint spooler service. I would start it and get a couple test prints out before it would turn off. Neither of these problems had anything to do with what I did, but I still got blamed. I wrote a batch to start the print spooler and instructed them to double click if they tried to print and it didn't come out.

Ryan82 wrote: »

Yep, because we work in IT we are expected to be knowledgeable on anything that powers on. Can you fix my blackberry?

I'm buying a new TV, whats a good one? Heck, I'm so distant with consumer computers I couldn't even tell you what a good one is. Unless your into serious games, I don't think any pc off the shelf is going to do you wrong.

Webmaster wrote: »

combined with typing an invisible keyboard in air

This is how I would remind my mom from across the room that I would like her to put the password into our dialup connection so that I could go play Runescape!

RobertKaucher

Because of this I am very choosy about whom I perform free services for now-a-days. Luckily no one in my family is like that. There have been some crazy indiviuals, though, that I have had to just ignore. After a while they go away. I have no problem "firing" a client - especially if said client is also feeloading off of my good will.

But if we get this crap - can you imagine what doctors get.

"Hey, you're a doctor. I have this rash..." *zip*

Michael.J.Palmer

I started charging them, my brother-in-laws work computer recently went down about a month ago and I charged $90 to do a full format restore and upgrade them back to Windows 7 (the machine had been worked on previously and whoever did the work put them on XP, since the machine had a serial for 7 I went ahead and pushed them back up).

You'd be surprised how little they'll ask for when you start charging, at that point it because a "I desparately need help ASAP, so I'll pay" scenario.

jamesleecoleman

Yea it sucks. I've had an ex president (not ex at the time) of an organization ask me if I could do mail merge. I told him that I didn't know how to do that. He seemed a little lost because I did support for blackboard at the time and I'm going to school for computers. He has his Ph.D and likes to be called Doctor XXXXXX. Well I should have came up to him one day and started to ask all these medical questions.

I've also had a lady who is the librarian at a small library. Well she asked me if I could help with the computers since their IT guy "didn't do anything". I agreed and she told me that she would pay me. I told her that she didn't have to. She asked for help weeks later and I agreed to it. Well when I was waiting for the computer to get done with something, I was talking to some people. When I was talking, she told me that I had lost $20. I was like ummm okay. Later on, she was trying to see if I wanted to work at the library. Yea I could see where she would pay me cheap and get computer support while babysitting kids. I add the baby sitting kids part because parents just dropped their kids off, left, and then came back hours later.

colemic

jamesleecoleman wrote: »

I've also had a lady who is the librarian at a small library. Well she asked me if I could help with the computers since their IT guy "didn't do anything". I agreed and she told me that she would pay me. I told her that she didn't have to. She asked for help weeks later and I agreed to it. Well when I was waiting for the computer to get done with something, I was talking to some people. When I was talking, she told me that I had lost $20. I was like ummm okay. Later on, she was trying to see if I wanted to work at the library. Yea I could see where she would pay me cheap and get computer support while babysitting kids. I add the baby sitting kids part because parents just dropped their kids off, left, and then came back hours later.

I do believe that I would have told her that I was now declining to offer my services.

Repo Man

It always starts with a line like "Time to put all that studying/school to use!"

SteveLord

Damn right I charge. I accept cash, check, twix, steak or rum.

-Built my brother his new comp this weekend, and had him buy lunch for my kids and I.

-Built for a coworker earlier this year. Steak dinner at his house, plus bottle of rum plus cash.

-Local plumber. Cleaned a clog out of my pipes. Cleaned a clog out of his computer system called Norton.

-In the office, TWIX bars can make one's seemingly minor issue become super expedited.

Remember, you're a professional!

mikedisd2

I have no problem fixing my dad's PC problems because I need him to help fix my car, paint my house, fix up any problems, etc.

Same with my friends. One mate is a builder; I've no issue bartering tradesets.

It's good to have a skill.

Aldur

mikedisd2 wrote: »

I've no issue bartering tradesets.

I'm all for bartering skills like this, but the problem I've seen in the past is people see us sitting down doing our work. So to them, this must be easy work that they just haven't had the time to sit down and read the manual...

Just as it's hard to explain to the "average person" what we do, it's equally hard to show them what we do.

it_consultant

Aldur wrote: »

I'm all for bartering skills like this, but the problem I've seen in the past is people see us sitting down doing our work. So to them, this must be easy work that they just haven't had the time to sit down and read the manual...

Just as it's hard to explain to the "average person" what we do, it's equally hard to show them what we do.

It is also hard to qualify your years of experience. 5 years ago an issue took me an hour to solve, now a similar problem takes me 10-15 minutes. It looks easy, but its only easy because I have been doing it for so long.

This is like a story my boss tells:

"A man hires a carpenter to fix a creak in a floor. The carpenter walks around the floor for a few minutes, tapping the floor boards with his boot and rubbing his chin. He withdraws one nail from his tool belt and sinks it into a floorboard with one swing of his hammer. The creak is gone.
'That'll be $100 please.'
'What!? That only took ten minutes!' an exasperated home owner exclaimed,
'Yep, one dollar for the nail, $99 for knowing where to put it'."

alan2308

Repo Man wrote: »

It always starts with a line like "Time to put all that studying/school to use!"

If I had a nickel for every time I heard that one.

RobertKaucher

it_consultant wrote: »

It is also hard to qualify your years of experience. 5 years ago an issue took me an hour to solve, now a similar problem takes me 10-15 minutes. It looks easy, but its only easy because I have been doing it for so long.

This is like a story my boss tells:

"A man hires a carpenter to fix a creak in a floor. The carpenter walks around the floor for a few minutes, tapping the floor boards with his boot and rubbing his chin. He withdraws one nail from his tool belt and sinks it into a floorboard with one swing of his hammer. The creak is gone.
'That'll be $100 please.'
'What!? That only took ten minutes!' an exasperated home owner exclaimed,
'Yep, one dollar for the nail, $99 for knowing where to put it'."

That is a good story. +Rep

Panzer919

it_consultant wrote: »

This is like a story my boss tells:

"A man hires a carpenter to fix a creak in a floor. The carpenter walks around the floor for a few minutes, tapping the floor boards with his boot and rubbing his chin. He withdraws one nail from his tool belt and sinks it into a floorboard with one swing of his hammer. The creak is gone.
'That'll be $100 please.'
'What!? That only took ten minutes!' an exasperated home owner exclaimed,
'Yep, one dollar for the nail, $99 for knowing where to put it'."

That's great!

Mishra

Comment that works for me every time.

"I don't know, computers change so often that I can't keep up. I would have to research your problem just like you would."

The 'computers change all the time' excuse is widely excepted. Works often.

rsutton

I've helped so many friends and family that I feel like the god father, everyone owes me now.

For

I don't mind helping others.
I always call in favours as a result of it.

Devilsbane

Sad but true.

Why It's Better To Pretend You Don't Know Anything About Computers - The Oatmeal

Forsaken_GA

I bought my parents macbooks for christmas last year.

So far, 2011 has been a family tech support free year.

Aldur

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

I bought my parents macbooks for christmas last year.

So far, 2011 has been a family tech support free year.

Funny you should say that. I gave my mom my iPad and even as computer illiterate as she is she has had no problems what so ever with it.

it_consultant

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

I bought my parents macbooks for christmas last year.

So far, 2011 has been a family tech support free year.

I used to recommend Macs, but Windows 7 solved a lot of the problems people have traditionally had with PCs with the exception of viruses. If I even think someone is virus prone I recommend a Mac. Although, I recently saw a Mac that was infected with a virus. The user was wise and did not enter the elevation password. The version of these viruses in the wild now no longer need the elevation pw.

Forsaken_GA

it_consultant wrote: »

I used to recommend Macs, but Windows 7 solved a lot of the problems people have traditionally had with PCs with the exception of viruses. If I even think someone is virus prone I recommend a Mac. Although, I recently saw a Mac that was infected with a virus. The user was wise and did not enter the elevation password. The version of these viruses in the wild now no longer need the elevation pw.

Well, I'm not worried so much about virii with my parents. Windows just has a tendency to break at times, and sometimes it can be fixed without a reinstall, other times, not, and it's a crap load of time to reinstall the box.

Once I got them hooked up with Time Machine, the backups were easy enough that they didn't have to jump through hoops to do it. The instructions of 'plug the USB drive in every few days' was nice and simple, and I ever do need to restore them, it takes about an hour.

This year for christmas, I'm planning on buying them an Airport Extreme to replace the piece of crap linksys wireless router they're using, and this will also give them the ability to handle their backups over the wireless, further simplifying backup issues.

Then there was the emotional payback for the gift. They'd been wanting Macs for awhile, after seeing me play with mine. But they don't make a whole lot of money, so the price was always the obstacle. The shock on their faces when they opened them up, and the tears that followed, were worth every cent. They say money can't buy happiness, but money combined with a thoughtful gift goes a long way

CodeBlox

mikedisd2 wrote: »

I have no problem fixing my dad's PC problems because I need him to help fix my car, paint my house, fix up any problems, etc.

Same with my friends. One mate is a builder; I've no issue bartering tradesets.

It's good to have a skill.

Yeah but when people come out of the wood works ONLY when they have these problems, then it's an issue. Especially when the problem could take a while to fix. People automatically assume I can fix every single problem. I end up researching the issue just as they would if they bothered to take the time.

carbonated

It drives me nuts that people think I want "the challenge" of fixing their sh*tty spyware infected laptops. The last thing I want to do after working all day is fix your crapmachine for free and become your new no-cost "go-to guy"

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