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The Tech Support Generation
prostoalex writes "Newsweek technology columnist Brad Stone is looking forward to the Thanksgiving dinner with his family next week, spending time in candle-lit rooms, preparing holiday shopping lists and... let's admit it - fixing the folks' computer. 'We are the Tech-Support Generation. Our job is to troubleshoot the complex but imperfect technology that befuddle mom and dad, veterans of the rotary phone, the record player and the black-and-white cabinet television set. Next week, on our annual pilgrimage home, we'll turn our Web-trained minds and joystick-conditioned fingers to the task of rescuing our parents from bleeding-edge technology on the blink', Brad Stone writes. In related news, what other products besides Google Desktop Search, Spybot Search & Destroy, Google Toolbar and Service Pack 2 are Slashdotters installing on their parents' Windows machines?"
Firefox & Thunderbird. Saves you lots of trouble.
I usually get flamed for this, but I just do NOT do family tech support any more. The appreciation doesn't always exist for the work put in, the expectations are as high as any job I've had, and it just...never...stops... I've been through the worst of it, not having a free weekend with my friends for weeks at a time, having weeknights with my partner disturbed constantly, and feeling like I'm moving from 9 to 5 work just to come 'home' and face more of the same.
Maybe it comes from having a really large extended family of people who just don't want to know how computers should/shouldn't work, but it's just too much sometimes. Strictly my mother and sister now, nobody else.
I've found that near complete ignorance of Windows is my best defense. I've not been a serious Windows user since 1994. So when someone asks me for assistance with their Windows problem I can quite truthfully say:
"I'm sorry, I don't know how that works."
Don't get me wrong, I make my living in tech. I code in between 8 and 12 languages (depending on how good my memory is that day), can play a medium grade Linux/Solaris guru when necessary, write web apps, architect large distributed systems, operate a wide variety of service provider and enterprise networking equipment, etc. I also like helping people who are having technical problems. But there's a big difference between being the IM of last resort for various Linux/Python,etc problems and having to deal with Windows users.
and then they will not take your expertise for granted:). After hooking up my entire close and extended family with computers for free (I usually pass my old computers (+$100 for reasonale upgrades) to them when I buy new stuff) this is what I found out:
0. Don't waste your time explainig to them what the problem is because they don't have the patience to listen to the entire explanation you are more than willing to give to them.
1. After fixing a problem you are blamed for ALL the other problems that will happen following the origial problem.
2. Unless a speed improvement is more than twice on a benchmark, people over 50 will not notice it, so don't waste time and money switching them from ATA66 to ATA133.
3. Any CPU over 1.5Ghz + 512M is an overkill.