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A Letter On Behalf of the World's PC Fixers

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the and-stop-clicking-links-from-strangers dept.

Barence writes "PC Pro's Steve Cassidy has written a letter on behalf of all the put-upon techies who've ever been called by a friend to fix their PC. His bile is directed at a friend who put a DVD bought on holiday into their laptop, and then wondered what went wrong. 'Once you stuck that DVD in there and started saying "yes, OK" to every resulting dialog box, you sank the whole thing,' Cassidy writes. 'It doesn't take 10 minutes to sort that out; it requires a complete machine reload to properly guarantee the infection is history. No, there is no neat and handy way I've been keeping secret that allows you to retain your extensive collection of stolen software licenses loaded on that laptop. I do disaster recovery, not disaster participation.'"

7 of 638 comments (clear)

  1. Working for free by fiannaFailMan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My brother, who isn't averse to saying "you can fix my computer", is a truck driver. Next time he comes to visit me while on vacation I'm going to get him to haul some furniture for me. I wonder if that will be enough to make him get the point.

    --
    Drill baby drill - on Mars
  2. Re:Get over it. by spun · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Generally, programmers are not asked to program for free by relatives. With mechanics, people know they need pay, they generally don't ask for free services unless you are immediate family, or an old friend who owes them. Accountants never do anyone's taxes for free, and you wouldn't ask a teacher to tutor your kids for free. Do you see the difference? It's not the "people are stupid" part that's the problem, it's the "your skills aren't worth anything" part that upsets the PC fixer.

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
  3. I quit using PCs by OrangeTide · · Score: 4, Interesting

    And switched to Linux/Solaris/NetBSD. Now I can claim ignorance when presented with some Windows related issue. And people quit asking for my help when I started suggesting they try Ubuntu instead.

    --
    “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
  4. Re:Worthless? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I used to do it too, for everyone I knew, friends, work, family etc, and it got really irritating not only because they always called me at odd hours and any time they felt like it, but they also made the same damn mistakes. They aren't stupid, just unwilling, I mean, why bother learning something I show in five minutes, when they can call this idiot any time something goes wrong.

    So, I've stopped doing it, when someone asked, I use linux, my knowledge is out of date, I don't have time, and so on. Now, they only call me when they're truly desperate, deadlines looming, sensitive data in danger and so on, and they pay, oh yes, they pay.

  5. Re:God I can relate! by Quiet_Desperation · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It can be worse. I'm an EE, and people I know think I can automagically fix *any* electronic device ever created.

    One guy wanted me to fix his neon beer sign. I know just enough about neon signs to know I don't want to mess around with voltages like that.

    Sometimes I get lucky. One friend called me and said the ceiling fan he installed is working oddly, and wondered if I knew what was wrong. From 10 miles away. :-/ A sudden brain wave made me ask if he had connected it to a dimmer switch. Sure enough, he had.

  6. This is why I set down ground rules by gman003 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I've been able to "negotiate" some ground rules for doing family tech support.
    1. If I say "it's fucked", it's fucked. I don't do miracles.
    2. If it's a program I've never used before, I'll click around for a few minutes to see if I can guess it. After that, I'll hand you the manual, and let you figure it out yourself.
    3. When I say "don't use ___, use ____ instead", you do it. I've been able to switch most of my family away from IE and MS Office this way.
    4. I don't work with printers. Period. If necessary, I (somewhat-jokingly) claim it's for religious reasons, as "only the devil is evil enough to be responsible for printer drivers."
    5. If I hop onto a browser to search for a solution, I will disable any toolbars that are taking up all your browser screen space. Without even being asked. You're welcome.
    6. If I've been at it for over an hour, and have made no progress, I reserve the right to give up.

    I suggest setting these down yourself, if you're frequently called upon to help. Generally, I've found it actually makes people slightly happier with you - apparently, placing more value on your skills makes others value them more as well.

  7. Says who? by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I find that when you are kind to family and friends, they are kind back. I help people with computer issues and in return they help me in their skilled areas. My dad, while not a mechanic, has a great deal of automotive experience and worked in the industry many a year. He has helped my numerous times with car problems. A good friend who comes to me for computer advice has been plenty happy to help me with home improvement work, as a couple of examples.

    Part of being a family is helping one another in ways that you can. That can be emotional support, advice, using your skills, etc. Give and get. Now if the other party is someone who just takes and takes, well then ya they aren't someone who you help, or probably associate with all that much. However you find that in general if you are nice, other people will be too.

    I'm very happy to help friends and family and they are happy to help me. Works out well.