People and their computer problems....

Kizzume

During the weekend, someone I know kept calling me because they were having some computer issues. The frustrating thing was that everything I told him as the answers on the phone call were things I had told him at least 5 other times and asked him to write down. There have been so many other things that I told him what the answer was and he goes and does something else and then doesn't tell me what the new thing he did was--he'd make it sound like he followed what I said when it's quite apparent that he didn't. Like if I tell him to go to the Device Manager and do a few things, he'll decide to go to someplace completely different to try to take care of the problem that he doesn't understand, then he'll DO something, and then won't be able to tell me what he did. Every time I go there I have to remove installer programs from his quick launch bar, and have to fix things in the registry because he has some programs installed more than 20 times on top of each other--but claims he never installed it, and gets angry at me when I tell him that he put installer programs in the quick launch bar, trying to make ME look like the bad guy for telling him what he was doing wrong.

I got a call today in fact about it. I'm so sick of it.

I want to apologize to JQ for the way I treated him in that message about his new computer. I was already so frustrated with the way Dennis (the clueless guy that always wants my help) that by the time I saw that post about the kind of computer that was gotten, I was emotional.

Please accept my apology.

Segep · Joined: 10 Nov 2007 Posts: 222

NEVER let anyone in real life know that you know ANYTHING AT ALL about computers. It's worse than being a doctor.

Kizzume · Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 9:20 pm Post subject:

If people would actually pay me something decent it wouldn't be so bad--but when I get paid $20 for doing 8 hours of work, sometimes 10 hours of work, doing something horridly tedious because the person is so computer illiterate that things have built up, and you know what I mean by that, it's just so frustrating.

If I ever get that way with you about php, database, and html stuff, please tell me right away. Call me up and yell at me. Laughing

debateman · Joined: 05 Dec 2007 Posts: 349 Location: New Mexico

People will always take advantage of situations without realizing that they are. Perhaps diagnosing the problem up front and then setting a fee. Otherwise your computer illiterate friend doesn't know the value of the service you are performing.

Kizzume · Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 10:24 pm Post subject:

The sad thing is, he DOES know the value but just doesn't want to pay it. He's willing to have a store do it and take several days and pay over $250 to do the same thing. He does this to all his friends that he thinks he can take advantage of, and it's frustrating. There was only one time where he actually paid me decently. Oh well.

dustin · Joined: 06 Dec 2007 Posts: 13

I hear ya man, I mean computer problems aren't that hard to diagonse. He shouldn't wine about a computer if he can't install a software program. There's always instructions. Coding is the only thing I have issues with.

Kizzume · Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 9:47 am Post subject:

They're definitely not hard to diagnose, unless it's something that has messed up the registry and then it can get pretty tricky--like if software has been installed multiple times without uninstalling, and it's not the kind of program that has been designed to install on top of itself. Also, if a virus has hit a machine, or malware and spyware, it can be VERY difficult to diagnose the exact issues--once files have been corrupted, figuring out which files are messed and figuring out the best method to replace those files can be a major pain.

For most people that fix computers, they take the lazy route when it comes to a computer that has gotten messed up by one of the above mentioned methods--they say "Let's re-install windows after I back up your files." (and sometimes not even backing up files) when usually it can be fixed without having to do that. You'd be amazed at how many professional computer repair places take that lazy route and then charge people an arm and a leg.