Aaaargh! A PC rant...

[johnmaneely]

I know this one. Coming from a mechinics background I used to get loads of people needing something looking at on there motor. I did things because I enjoyed at first but it became a pain after a while. Now its cash for my time if anyone wants it and rightly so.

Would other people(solicitors,lawyers,builders,plumbers a like)work for nothing as a favour for distant friends? Would they heck. Know your worth, tell them its your business and if they want work these are the rates take it or leave.

[annatrnr]

Shiny, I can really understand as HWMBO has the same problem - his answer has become "I am sorry I only work with servers I cant fix PCs" (nose growing longer by the day!) But it does seem to help - blind them with gargon the more tecki the better till they are totally baffled then send them to PC world

[Arfie]

You have my full sympathy ShinyD, I have the same thing.

I also am quite prepared to do this for friends, but I have at one time had 5 computers at my house waiting to be looked at and everyone wants them doing urgently within 24 hours.

I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination so some of these computers can take me over 8 hours to look at, whether it's removing viruses, trojans etc or failing parts and nobody can ever afford to lose any data, so instead of a quick reformat and reinstall I end up spending hours doing things the hard way.

There are acquaintances I have that think I repair computers for a living, they don't offer to pay though. I am thinking of starting to charge people who aren't direct friends £50 see if that reduces it.

Arfie

[The Penguin]

Originally Posted by Scuttler

Nooooooooo.....need a minimum 30 secs between an on and off cycle

Originally Posted by PW1664

24 hours... surely... and if that doesn't work, try a little longer!

...and some judicious thumping!

take an engineer's hammer with you, a tool that'll fix anything...

[Steve Summers]

I always find ''fcuk you and the horse you rode in on'' ensures I'm never asked again

Safe diving,
Steve

[ShinyD]

Originally Posted by Steve S

I always find ''fcuk you and the horse you rode in on'' ensures I'm never asked again

Safe diving,
Steve

Lol!! I wish I had the bottle for that

[annatrnr]

And there in lies your problem - your too nice!!!

[lloydwatkin]

I know exactly what you're talking about

Worst of them all is my parents, I visit get taken straight to the machine, spend hours fixing it get up to leave and get told "why don't you ever spend any time talking to us?", urgh!

Good luck!

[Robski]

Originally Posted by endoman

Sorry if it's been posted before, but I still love this, " Technical Support"

Weakend Productions - 3d animation, digital visual effects, motion graphics

Arrgh, ya swine, you beat me to it - I love that cartoon, sums up my job nicely. Also, the main character so startlingly resembles a colleague of mine that we've renamed him Jeb..

Getting back to the point and, as per what's been said a few times before, start charging for your services and do it properly, no messing about.

My line nowadays is 'My company charges £EEEEK per day for me to turn out for site visits and our customers pay without hesitation, cos I'm effin good and they get their money's worth. If they pay for my time, so should you, especially because you're taking up my free time, of which I have bugger all.. However, because I'm a helpful kinda guy, I'll give you three bits of free advice:
1) If you want me to have a look at this piece of crap running 98SE and clear out all those trojans you've copped off of nuns'ndonkey.com, you can take a running jump. Buy a new PC ya tightarse.
2) If it's a Win2000, XP or Vista issue, you need to be aware that I'm going to blow away your OS and rebuild the thing so start backing up your data and get to the cashpoint cos it's going to cost you £50 per hour. If it's the second time I've had to do it cos you just couldn't keep away from Limewire, it's £100 per hour.
3) Yes, you too Dad.'

Tell you what, it works a treat. Keeps the @rseholes away and the few that remain pester me only when they have to.

[Richard Mason]

Originally Posted by lloydwatkin

I know exactly what you're talking about

Worst of them all is my parents, I visit get taken straight to the machine, spend hours fixing it get up to leave and get told "why don't you ever spend any time talking to us?", urgh!

Good luck!

Hah. You think that's bad. I ring the folks back home in Blighty, get my Dad whoi is having computer problems, mainly because he never does a disc cleanup nor a defrag.

Furthermore, he hasn't worked out how to save photos etc and more seriously, correspondence from work (various financial statements, certificates etc in pdf), he's an Independent Financial Adviser, so the upshot is that any email he's ever been sent over the past 5 years that has an important attachment, he hasn't deleted.

So I spend 3 hours on the phone....from Australia mind you......telling him how to set up new folders to store his stuff in and how to save to them. Matters are made worse by the fact that he tries to have a conversation with me about why he didn't see a dialogue box, or he'll just shout hysterically that a little box has opened and he doesn't know what to do, not hearing me asking him to read it out to me becvause he's just repeating the same panic bollacks over & over and not listening to me. Then it's the disc cleanup and I don't want to even discuss the defrag. The save as command totally eludes him too.

Worst part about it is that after a 1-3 hr session, I'll be on the phone to them a month later and he's forgotten everything. It's got to the stage where I won't ring anymore as it's costing me a fortune and a lot of blood pressure.