Comments on: Family tech support

By: Scott J.

Scott J. — Thu, 11 May 2006 18:34:12 +0000

I’ve been running the same network for ten years now. Never fails, when they bring on new big-wigs (I’m on my 3rd – 4th generation of them), they at first treat me like I’m a trained monkey, then when they realize I actually know what I’m doing, like a really *convenient* trained monkey. Then I always have The Conversation:

PHB: “I’m building a home network, but I don’t know how to set it up, how much do you charge?”

Me: “$150 per hour. One hour minimum. Includes travel to your place and back.”

PHB, after staring at me goggle-eyed for a second: “Wow, you really don’t want to do much side-work, do you?”

Me: “Bingo!”

Sometimes, just sometimes, someone will pony up and actually pay me that rate. I’m the proud owner of a Taiwanese superbike (bicycle, all carbon-fiber) because of one of these people.

It’s been a long time since I’ve written about them, but [SHAMELESS PLUG] I have written a few tech support experiences up. The two I like best are:

Welcome to my world IV, the e-mail edition

and

The very first Welcome to My World

By: Jim Katz

Jim Katz — Thu, 11 May 2006 13:35:00 +0000

For me it’s my Dad, he was one of GE’s first computer programmers back in 1952. All he knows is punch cards and load accumulator. Whatever that is. I just about got him talked into getting cable so he can get broadband, he doesn’t watch TV. About once a month I have to go fix something or show him how to change the settings in one of the three programs he uses: Mozilla Thunderbird, Word Perfect, and Firefox. He travels all summer on his motorcycle, but has no interest in adding a laptop to that mix. Thank you for small favors.

By: The Doctor

The Doctor — Thu, 11 May 2006 13:30:27 +0000

Same problem here.
What is it about Jewish mothers and computers? And trying to walk them through things at a distance of 1000 miles? And I still can’t convince her to stop forwarding every crazy email she gets to 10000 of her closest friends…

By: SnoopyTheGoon

SnoopyTheGoon — Thu, 11 May 2006 13:04:04 +0000

HP laptops? Yuck!

(ex-IBM – always IBM)

P.S. Take a look at the new stuff coming out lately from Lenovo/IBM – amazing.

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 11 May 2006 12:21:45 +0000

I totally understand this one. So three years ago, I switched to the Mac platform, and informed my family that, since I was no longer a Windows user, I would be unable to provide tech support.

A year later, they all switched to Macs also. But the vaolume of tech support required has gone way down.