(no subject)

[sami-rdwd.livejournal.com]

Okay, so my family and friends know I do tech support and I've now become what they believe to be their "personal tech support."
My ex-boyfriend IMed me on messenger the other day with the question - "How do I burn files to DVD? Where do I get the program to do it?" A slight backstory - he'd downloaded some movies from limewire and wanted to burn them to DVD. I told him that he'd probably want to run some anti-spyware software if he had stuff like limewire because his computer was probably infested quite nicely. He then replied "Oh yeah, I use that stuff [the anti-spyware stuff] to defrag my hardrive and shit all the time." Yeah... go ahead and throw in a computer term that you know but have no clue what it means and see how smart you look.
It only took me a good 40 minutes to convince him that if he only had a DVD/CD-RW drive, and it would only read DVD's, that he could not burn DVD's, no matter how many CD's he was able to burn - that it would have to be a DVD-R drive.
Yeah.. after I closed the IM, I said a silent prayer thanking the powers that be for giving me the good sense to run like hell in the other direction when he said "If you'll stay with me for a year, I'll put a ring on your finger."

Comments

[superbus.livejournal.com]

I'm constantly expected to drop everything I'm doing just to do tech support for family and friends. I let people know undoubtedly that they run on my schedule, and I don't care what's broke.

If they persist, I give them one URL to help them with, it's a wonderful little tool: http://www.google.com

[mariasama16.livejournal.com]

Stories like this make me incredibly grateful I'm in a geek family (ie: they can darn well fix their own problems and know that if they can't, google will at least give them a starting point).

[sami-rdwd.livejournal.com]

I'm the geek both in my family and in my current boyfriend's family. They all call me for tech support... even when I've just gotten home from a day doing tech support at work.

[mariasama16.livejournal.com]

I feel for you.

[russianswinga.livejournal.com]

But... But... The gentleman offered you marriage, isn't that the ideal that every good maiden should strive towards?

**laugh**snicker**sarcasm**

[shirenomad]

Nope! Just every good man; too bad we're all scum who are afraid of commitment!

(Sorry, but I had to return fire on that one. ;P)

[japester.livejournal.com]

::snerk::

*icon love*

[goose-entity.livejournal.com]

ditto :)

[wignersfriend.livejournal.com]

I had a friend from high school move in around the corner from me. Every single time he called me up during the three months after that was to get help with his computer, not to hang out or anything else.

He called me to tell me that his computer was smoking and he wasn't getting a picture on his monitor. I told him to go fuck himself.

[http://users.livejournal.com/hub_/]

That remind me of my brother....

[fenrirvallin.livejournal.com]

I tell family up front I do tech support in return for food.

I tell my guy friends I do tech support in return for beer.

I tell my girl friends I do tech support for sex.

Works out well. Keeps the stupid questions to a minimum, and most of my female friends are either competent or doing it for a living.

[firon.livejournal.com]

The question is, is the "female friends competent or doing it for a living" comment regarding tech support or sex! LOL!

Sorry, I just read that and HAD to comment! :P

[fenrirvallin.livejournal.com]

Little of column a, little of column b...

[ljquin.livejournal.com]

In thee cases I like to jokingly mention the going consultancy hourly fee for someone with my qualifications and experience but I generally help out good friends for some tea and chocolate or biscuits. Hubby (an amazingly brilliant sysadmin) and I both regularly receive wine or whisky (for him) or chocolates (for me) for doing the most trivial of things

[ljquin.livejournal.com]

In thee cases I like to jokingly mention the going consultancy hourly fee for someone with my qualifications and experience but I generally help out good friends for some tea and chocolate or biscuits. Hubby (an amazingly brilliant sysadmin) and I both regularly receive wine or whisky (for him) or chocolates (for me) for doing the most trivial of things

[kerberos.livejournal.com]

"If you'll stay with me for a year, I'll put a ring on your finger."

Yeah because emotional blackmail is such a wonderful thing to build a relationship on. Le sigh.

[therealdrhyde.livejournal.com]

My family know not to ask me for help with their stupid broken Windows boxes, because they know my answer will be "sure, let's go and buy you a Mac". It's a bit like helping them get a boat and some nets instead of giving them a tin of manky tuna.

[kyidyl.livejournal.com]

Amen, man. *hugs her macbook pro*

Yes. I got so sick of broken windows boxen that I spent 2k on a new computer. THIS IS WHAT WINDOWS HAS DRIVEN ME TO! ;) lol

[jsbillings]

I dealt with several years of being the family tech guy, including calls from my mother's friends saying, "Your mom said you're good with computers, could you fix ?" Finally, I got sick of it, and started quoting my consulting rate for "friends of famiy" at $100/hour, 3 hour minimum.

[mashiroikaze.livejournal.com]

Latching onto the "just throw a computer term in the middle there to make it seem like you know what you're talking about" comment, that's what my coworker does all the time. I'll mention something in passing, he takes some fragment from it and tries to spin a monologue about it with technical jargon to make himself look good, and then passes that monologue onto non-technical people (after he throws it at me).

The worst part? He's the manager of some of our computing labs. And my boss wonders why I try to keep helping this guy to a minimum.

[wherdafux-d-cat.livejournal.com]

Ironically, I have a student who does the same thing with fencing (see icon). I make a quiet but strong personal policy to keep him away from the beginners. *eyeroll* (He knows not to do it in earshot of me anymore since I have no problem calling him out on it in front of the whole club -- he's used up his 'quiet reminders' and now gets the friendly, coachly cluebat in public.)