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Best Results From Bartering Computer Services?
silicon not in the v writes "Last night I was over at some friends' house. They had cable modem with no firewall and tons of spyware, etc. on their system. They complained about all the popups and how bad it was that they were afraid to let their kids on the computer, so I set them up with ZoneAlarm, Ad Aware, and Firefox to get it cleaned up. In return, the husband, who is a chiropractor, gave my wife and I a free adjustment. What other interesting services or benefits have people been able to get by bartering IT/programming services?"
I get my taxes done for free after setting up a Samba domain for a local accountant here in my area. Pretty nice if you ask me.
When I was a student, I set up an old 8086 "XT" class machine with DOS and 8-in-1 office software for a small restaurant. Basically just duplicated their ledger in the spreadsheet. I ate breakfast there all summer for free.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
My favorite thus far was an offer from a couple in Ireland who offered a night's lodging and a hearty Irish breakfast should we ever visit their fair country--in exchange for the bonus level pack.
Even though we probably won't hav ethe opportunity to take them up on the offer anytime soon, it was made in earnest, and I was happy to send them a copy of the level pack in return. Even though I can't buy beer 'n' pizza with it, this "barter" has proven far more memorable than the typical few bucks plonked in the PayPal account...
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
I had plastic surgery to my face (the removal of six ugly moles) in return for doing some SEO (nothing unethical, just getting the right search terms in the right places) to the surgeons homepage that brought it into the first place on most search engines when one searched for "breast enlargement" (in the local language).
I think that beats your bone bending...
A month or so before I moved into my first apartment she was moving out of her one-bedroom to live with her new fiance, and so in return for my work she called me up and gave me all the furniture from her old apartment provided I move it out.
I ended up getting a futon, couch, kitchen table and chairs, two clothes chests, a couple end tables, and a slew of kitchen stuff (plates, glasses, pots etc), all in excellent condition. She essentially totally furnished my new place and it cost me nothing.
I consider this to be the best example of good karma at work I've experienced to date.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
As long as you are not exchanging money for sex, you are not in danger of breaking any laws. In fact, that's how "Escorts" still survive, you pay them for their time, anything you decide to do with that time is not included in the price. Or you're just "tipping" them. ;-)
Of course if prostitution was legalized, there would be a lot less crime in this country, and the spread of diseases would be WAY down (ala the red light district in Amsterdam). I've known people who have traded various smokeable items for computer work in the past, that and car service are the two most memorable exchanges. Generally if somone is willing to trade sex for computer service, you're either already dating them, or the sex isn't worth the price paid
My only barter experience was in the early-mid nineties when people were just starting to talk abouut cyber-cafe's. A friend called me late one night saying the proprieter of the local coffee house was haveing a problem with his computer getting connected to AOL. I came by and fixed the problem and he said I could have anything on the menu.
This is were it got good. I asked him what he would recommend, not becaus I didn't understand what a latte was but because the proprieter always knows what he does best. He suggested I try a Turbo Cola. I said, "huh?"
Here's ther recipie:
3-4 ice cubes of frozen, high quality coffee.
2 shots of espresso
Fill the rest with Coke.
This turned out to be my all time favorite coffee drink. The creamy head is equal or superior to Guiness, the flavor is perfect and I've never gotten a better rev.
The monetary value of this barter is nothing to get excited about, but the store went out of business a short time after this event and I know I'm one of only a select few that got a crack at one of these drinks. I make if for myself fairly often and know that this recipe is worth far more than the drink itself. If you've never tried a coffee-cola give this recipe a try. Every person who tries one of these and loves it just increases the value of that one, simple job I did.
TW
This is a third-party story, but still relevant.
My Dad commutes to work every day on the train. He's gotten to be pretty friendly with the conductors/engineers over the past couple of years. One of them mentioned his troubles setting up a wireless network in his home, and my Dad offered his services to work the kinks out for him. It was a frustrating day's work getting everything tweaked just so, but it turned out to be worth it - he hasn't had to pay for a train ticket in about 3 years now. As an added bonus, whenever there's a concert or a Red Sox game, the conductors leave one car empty for my Dad and the other 'regulars' so they don't have to ride home with a train full of drunken yahoos.
In college, I was approached by one of my girlfriend's dormmates, a good-looking blonde poli-sci major who'd procrastinated on some statistical thing she needed to do on the campus computer system. She was in danger of failing a class if she didn't get it done over the weekend, and she literally didn't even know how to log into the system.
So, after much hinting and many awkward silences, she blurted out that she'd do anything I wanted if I bailed her out. Surely at that moment I achieved a permanent place in the Geek Hall of Fame, perhaps in the Absurd Fantasies wing.
But it gets better. You see, I was very happy with my girlfriend at the time (whom I later married), and I didn't want to mess that up by sleeping with someone she saw every day and whom I didn't trust to keep quiet. So I turned her down.
For the sex, anyway. I had her take me out to dinner instead. The stats thing she needed took me 20 minutes to run.
I was walking on air for some time after that, just based on the principle of the thing.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
Trucks now a days are very high tech. They almost all have GPS responders that reveal where they are, what speed they are doing etc. And truckers are lonely, so they often have internet connections for use while they are parked for the night.
I have found many truckers to be computer geeks at heart.
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