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Growth Job Sector: Freelance Technical Support
An anonymous reader wrotes: "Over at World New York, they've posted excellent advice to the geek masses: If you're out of work and know how to use a computer, you can make a killing doing freelance technical support." Update: 07/25 20:00 GMT by M : The author has asked that we link to the article on homepage.mac.com due to server overload. :)
It's too much of a liability. Trust me, I know. I almost got sued because some ladies drive physically crashed after I worked on her Windowz problems (spyware locking up PC). So even if you have them sign a before and after contract, just the rigamaroll of having to go through all that is a pain in the ass. No thank you, I would have to be incorporated with a few other people. This is NOT something you want to do by yourself.
Life is not for the lazy.
That market is saturated pretty bad if you ask me.
deserve's got nothing to do with it...
That's how I got my current job ~2 years ago. Configuring 2 Cisco PIX firewalls on a contract basis. Now I'm full time and love it.
Trolling is a art,
I would see signs/ads, everywhere (literally), begging to have people hire them at prices that reached into the hundreds per hour. I'm a simple guy, without too many expenses, I buy a ton of games, and for me, $20 dollars an hour was great. I got to choose my own hours, and make myself profitable.
As for the "idiots to techs" ratio question, some people obviously haven't worked in the tech field [long enough]. Until the day they make a computer completely crash/idiot-proof, there will always be a need for a technician.
My two cents...
Technical support is a draining experience. I worked in techsupport for a while. The company I worked for had a 110% turn-over rate for employees. If they needed 20 people to keep the call-floor running, they would hire 22 people every quarter to keep up with the amount of quitting that happened: It's that miserable listening/talking-to people who are predisposed to hate everything related to computers (including you).
You can make a killing in tech support -- assuming you don't kill yourself before your first paycheck.
"If I were to ask you a hypothetical question, what would you like it to be about?"
That's "subscriber-dotted" now.
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
With so many thousands of fellow geeks out of work already for the last couple of years, this market is already saturated.
Besides, people aren't willing to pay the amount of money it takes to take care of stoopid Windoze problems- a reload on an average system can take 4-6 hours (with backups, new drivers, etc.)
Hard to get more than a couple systems a day through, then you've got to figure on all the time and energy spent on trying to get clients.
I'm making more money (sadly enough) as a convenience store manager than as a geek nowadays.
And now, as well, with even programming jobs being shopped overseas, the market for geek skills is even tougher.
Changing careers may be a better option than chasing after elusive (and non-existant) tech money.
peace,
r.
Aiieee! Death from above!
-
"No one in this world
... has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby. "
- H.L. MenckenRemember, this is the general public that doesn't understand why a monopoly in general-use operating systems is a Bad Thing (tm). Yeah, that's right... I had to throw some anti-Microsoft sentiment into this, so sue me.
--Mid
Im sure the majority of /. readers have done something like this, but the difference is that my spare wanderings supply the *majority* of my income. Simply by bringing up computers, or speaking to people at bars of cool technologies, ive found myself doing work for a reasonably large crowd. Once you've done work for someone, they almost ALWAYS have a friend that needs something, and that friend has a friend, and so forth. While its not the most stable work in the world, i always seem to do alright. (I would put it on par with waiting tables, the numbers always seem to end up partially in your favor). The best part? You can charge $50/hour showing some nitwit how to install kazaa, and hes all the happier. And they love you :)
Suppose I want to be a freelance tech support / Windows Superman who can swoop into peoples homes and repair their neglected boxes. By the letter of the MS law...errr...license....what can I actually do?
/i386 stuff, cabs and infs.
Will the typical user be able to produce any OS media whatsoever? Full version (ha!) Upgrade? (possibly)... recovery cd?
If not what am I left with? Windows Update? perhaps. The admins in my office carry a pack labeled "CDs to Fix Most Anything" and these include our corporate ver of various MS products.
If I went to Staples and purchased a full ver of XP Pro, could I use it to repair existing broken installations. I do not mean a complete reinstallation, rather, I suppose it would be the
It's not bad if you keep it in perspective. A lot of those guys on the other end of the phone line are frustrated because they've been talked down to for so long. If you treat them with respect, it works fine. At least that has been my experience. --vicki
While I'm not sure suing you is a viable business plan, I have been wondering what the geek world thought of starting a home computer leasing program where regular users would lease a computer (running GNU/Linux, of course) from my (as yet hypothetical) business for a regular monthly fee. In addition to low initial costs for the users, minimal configuration computer is free with a 12 month contract kinda thing, I would think knowing that someone out there was obligated to help with tech support would be very comforting. Basically take how the typical cell phone plan works and apply that to GNU/Linux system leasing and service support. Would it work?
I do not have a signature
Really though, can you make enough money to make it a full-time job? Can you actively seek users to pay you 20$ an hour doing trivially tedious work?
I'm not the devil.. just his advocate.
From an actual call from my wife and later me (both engineers):
Wife: Our channels went out during a storm and we're only getting about half of them now.
Tech: Turn off your receiver, pull out the SmartCard, wait 10 seconds, reinsert it and turn it on.
Wife: I already did that, it didn't work.
Tech: It's probably the cabling.
Wife: How? We're getting half the channels perfectly clear. In fact, it's only the even transponder channels that aren't working.
Tech: According to my database, it's probably the cables. Do you know if you have RG6 cables?
Wife: I don't know, my husband installed it.
Tech: Have your husband call us back when he gets home.
When I got home, I called. While on hold for about 15 minutes, I surfed through the onscreen setup and came to a page that listed satellite and transponders. Everything was X'ed out except one satellite was listed "Transponders: Odd". I ran the "Check Switch" option and it updated with two satellites and both odd and even transponders. Everything worked fine.
What kind of moron, or database, thinks the cables are the problem when half the channels are perfect? Dumbasses! They don't even know their own system setup or even basic electronics debugging.
Mod me down as off-topic, but I think this post is relevant to the nature of this thread. These forums are all doom and gloom these days. Is all of /.'s reader base unemployed? I guess this is what I get for reading in the middle of the work day, of course the only posters would be people who are out of work, or in school. ALL IT IS GOING OVERSEAS! NO GEEKS CAN MAKE MONEY! I'm not buying any of it. The numbers of returns for tech job searches on the likes of monster.com in the tech sector have never been higher than they are now. And I'm seeing jr. level programming positions advertising 60-70k/year. I'm in school and my programming internships (with 2 large companies) have paid better than what a lot of people are saying the average full-time salary is these days. Both companies have asked me to return after I graduate for full time positions starting at nice comfortable salaries. I'm no super genius either, I'm a good programmer who works hard. And it's not location, because I've worked in 3 states already. I dunno, maybe I'm young and stupid and not seeing the big picture.
The problem I see, is that all the companies may encourage you to do freelance tech support, with your rates a little lower than established firms. Then viciousness ensues, the firms are undercut in price and begin going in death throes so they attempt to function with lower prices. Then unemployed freelancers lower their business. Eventually, you hear "what do you mean you want 7$ an hour for computer support, that's robbery". You need to have a very good reason for going into business for yourself. Unemployment is not a good reason.
Redwoodtree: Thanks for the note of understanding and encouragement. I'll also add that in a lot of cases, my more affluent clients will simply give me working hardware they don't need anymore (ie - recently got a 19" monitor and a Brother HL-1440 laser printer) - if the stuff's good enough I'll use it, and therefore save on a purchase - or I'll turn around or sell it to a less well-off client that's willing to buy used hardware. What also helps is living in a area with a fairly aged population - I notice older folks need more help with computers, are less quick to upgrade, and are very loyal to people who give them good service.
I'm a 20 year old computer geek and I'm great at computer troubleshooting, but this isn't as easy as they make it seem. Its hard to find clients. I handed out numbers of cards,flyers and put ads in the paper. I got about two calls.
Remember, this is the general public that doesn't understand why a monopoly in general-use operating systems is a Bad Thing (tm).
Then, why do they know enough to be suspicious of monopolies in other industries? If they went to buy a car, and they had no choice but to buy, for example, a Ford Pinto, Ford Streaky Clean windsheild wipers, Ford Slippery When Wet tires, and Ford Big Bang gasoline they would throw a fit that would make a 2-year-old envious.
My theory is that humans are very susceptible to user interfaces. All cars are basically the same, all screwdrivers are basically the same, etc., but there are enough differences between MS Windows and Motif CDE to make people uncomfortable. One thing Microsoft does well is shove a somewhat-consistent UI down everyone's throats.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
On a small dish satellite receiver (DirectTV or Dish Network) there's a bit in the antenna (the LNB) that's switched between even and odd transponders by feeding a DC (one of tw voltage levels) signal from the reciever back to the antenna. The signal switches the LNB between clockwise and counterclockwise circular polarization. Even transponders use one polarization, and odd transponders use the other.
When you ran the switch test, you caused control signals to be sent to the relays that switch between two LNBs in your antenna (these are usually low frequency tone controls). The test repeatedly cycled the relays, which tends to clean the contacts. This then allowed the differetn DC signal levels to reach the antenna to switch the LNB to get odd transponders.
Odds are pretty good that you have one or more connectors in the coax running to the antenna that are not sealed and have a little corrosion in them, weakening the DC control signal. Less likely but possible causes include a marginal switch, or a long run of lower quality cable such as RG/59.
True story from a friend who works for local cable company: he was sitting in the van doing paperwork when a fat, unattractive woman knocks on the window and asks how much cable is per month. $30. She asks if she can *BLOW* him for cable. He politely refuses, she's way gross. She then ups the ante and offers sex, but no way, she's an ogre. He makes his excuses and gets the hell out of her neighborhood (trailer park, too many jokes flooding my head...) Funny thing is my pal told people back at the office about the encounter and now everyone talks about it. So moral of the story: bored & lonely housewives are not hot, they are alone for a reason.
pot.kettle(black);
I have been doing freelance support, teaching old ladies how to email, setting up home networks, and installing drives and adapters into pc's for a couple years now. If you bust your ass and spend a lot of time and a reasonable amount of money advertising (flyers, newspaper ads, a radio commercial etc. then you can make a fair living at this. You can easily charge $60-$120 for an hours work and you charge even more when small businesses call and need emergency service. I charge 80 an hour at this point and for emergencies at night I have charged as much as 200 an hour. It definitely keeps me in the lunch money while I go to college full time.
I've been doing 'spare time' consulting for years - I choose my clients carefully and I've made a reasonable amount of extra money doing it and helped a lot of good people. Do it for a LIVING....? Hm. Let me think about thatNO. Too much fluctuation in demand, even the GOOD clients can make life miserable and, of course, there's just software/hardware weirdness sometimes. If you're VEEWWWY CAREFUL... you MIGHT be able to scrape up enough $$ for rent on a small apt.... but don't expect to live large.
Considering probably 4 of 5 computers has spyware dribbling out of every orifice, I'd say there's plenty of business.
In fact, as long as MS is the market leader in OS and desktop "productivity" software, tech support should thrive.
.sigs are for post^Hers.