(no subject)

[ravenofdreams.livejournal.com]

Nnngh.
Alright, everyone, I have to ask. What is your favourite / the best way of telling family members and friends that you will not fix their computer/television/VCR/iWhatever for free?

I ask because it seems like lately they've been coming out of the woodwork. Great-Aunt Somebody, Friend-I-Haven't-Spoken-To-In-Years, all of them, wanting me to fix their widgets. I don't mind, generally, if it's quick and it just comes up while we're otherwise together, but it's been getting excessive. I feel like I need a quick way of pointing out that when MOST people ask me to do this, there is some kind of remuneration going on.

I had a conversation the other day that went (at 6 am, when I was had been ASLEEP):
*phone rings*
Me: Wuzza?
Friend: So, my hard drive's died, I think. What does $ERROR_MESSSAGE mean?
Me: Means your hard drive's died. You need to get a new one.
Friend: Oh. Can you fix it for me? I'll bring it by later. 
*click of friend hanging up*
Me: THE FUCK?

So. Input?

Comments

[jecook]

About the only person whom I can't readily deny is Mother, and she only pesters me when it's something that really is above her skill level. The rest of my family has other people they talk to more often to pester. :)

[talonvaki.livejournal.com]

Don't answer your phone?

[anonymissity.livejournal.com]

I just tell them that I'm really busy right now and I'll TRY to get to it "when I can".

And then just don't.

They get the hint eventually.

[prushrush.livejournal.com]

It depends on what family member or friend it is.

[vulpine137.livejournal.com]

I get away with 'Is it running Linux? Y/n' If N, tell them to contact $FRIEND who does this sort of thing for a living, and has reasonable rates.

If it's Y, then either, they're friends of mine who know as much, if not more about Linux than me, so why are they calling. Or, they're the friend I built the Linux fileserver as a Cthulhumas present, and it comes with tech support. That reminds me, I need to get that spare 1tb usb drive from her to do backups to, just so the drive doesn't crater.

[fragbert.livejournal.com]

My mother was famous for volunteering me to fix her friends' computers. Usually on a Saturday. Bear in mind I wasn't living at home, either.

The first time, I tried to patiently explain that this was my job, not a hobby, and I have better things to be doing than giving out free tech support on a weekend. I analogized that my wife (an attorney) didn't go to people's houses on weekends and draw up wills for free. My mother didn't understand a bit of it. So after the third time she called me, told me that Martha or Edna or whoever had some computer problems, I went and cleaned the usual spyware off the hard drive, and presented my mother with an itemized bill for 75 bucks: $25 per hour for two hours, $10 for lunch out, and $10 for gas.

Of course, I never saw the money. She didn't speak to me for a week (worth every penny of the $75), but never again volunteered me.

Friends I tell

[emt-hawk.livejournal.com]

that I normally charge $100.00 an hour. If they start pestering me too much, I explain to them that we're getting to the point where I'm going to need to start charging them.

I also point out that it's cheaper than taking the computer to any of the local computer shops.

Family, I am blessed. I have two parents, my GF has two parents, and a brother who's 5 hours away. I don't do a lot of tech support for them, and if I do, they make sure that I get some sort of reward, such as brownies or something.

[lunatic59.livejournal.com]

I usually tell them to bring it 'round but there's a few paying jobs in front of them, which have priority. Then, if they don't get the hint, let it sit for a week or until they start calling and nagging to get it back. Then if it still doesn't drive the point home, tell them that the problem is beyond your scope of expertise and you'd hate to bork their system any more than it already is ... try the geek squad.

[historychick49.livejournal.com]

My dad and my step-mom are really the only people who ask me for tech support anymore (well, my mom does too, really occasionally, but that's usually only when we're already on the phone talking). They're the good kind of "customers", too, in that they listen to my explanations and make notes on what they need to do in the future. Plus they take me out to eat whenever I visit them, and they help me out in other ways, too, so I enjoy helping them.

(Plus, the utter delight and amazement they both had when I set up their computers to print over their home network was beautiful.)

[penguin-attie.livejournal.com]

The only person who needs IT support around me is my mother, and I usually do it happily since she has been doing all my laundry for me ever since I had to sell my washing machine last year. And if I leave her alone with the problem for a while, she usually manages to figure out some sort of solution on her own.

So, uh, I guess the moral of that is... don't talk to people who can't fix their own computer?

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Especially not at 6am.

[mouser.livejournal.com]

Mother (and dad on the opposite coast) aside, I demand something wacky.

As in, one girl I told I would only do it if she topless.


(No, it didn't work.)

[argonel.livejournal.com]

Scavenge anything useful out of the machine, then try to fix the hard drive if you get bored. If they don't know enough to fix it themself they probably don't need more than 256Mb of RAM either.

[jecook]

Alas, the only ones I know that would even ask me are either happily hitched already, or ones that I've already seen the goods on.*


* To paraphrase Ron White: "When you've seen one woman nekkid, you wanna see the rest of em nekkid."

[heinous_bitca.livejournal.com]

I've told my family that if they don't ask me for advice in buying the computer, they don't get any support.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Me. I charge them.

Granted, I don't specify an amount, whatever they feel like giving, [you'd be surprised how well that works out usually] and I also accept alcohol and baked goods instead of money. [cookies are welcome]

I explain that this is my job [I'm self-employed] and I have to charge something for legal reasons. On the whole it works pretty well. Either they don't pester me again, or I get something out of it.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

I think that by 'scavenge' you mean 'steal'.

Ok to do on a dead machine that they'd only throw out...bit iffy with something that they might want to keep.

[otoh, I got a free laptop out of the trash once, the luser was too dumb to realise all that was wrong was a dead AC adaptor and consequently a flat battery.]

[fallconsmate.livejournal.com]

"i dont work for free. i will, however, name a voodoo doll after your computer and sacrifice a chicken."

et voila! no more calls. *smirking* i miss my techie.

[the-reda.livejournal.com]

XD I did that in college i.e. put up a sign "Will dispose of broken computers for free" (you cannot just put them in the trash here/there).

The amount of not really broken but too dumb to realize that they were giving away perfectly good parts ... very high.

things that apparently are indistructable: floppy disk drives

[gotica.livejournal.com]

Hard to not answer it if you're supposed to be on call :P (not saying that OP was on call, just a scenario)

Plus it could have been important, why else would someone be so inconsiderate to call at that time?

[gotica.livejournal.com]

I managed to train my mother to read the manual.

No one else in the family pesters me because of my antisocial working hours I don't think I've seen them socially in a very long time.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

This is why it's important to have a separate work phone from personal phone. :)

And to be brutally honest, I can't think of anything that I would need to answer the phone for at 6am, unless it was "Bushfire headed your way."

I figure, if it's important enough to call during nap time, it's important enough to call more than once.

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

$25+
$25+
$10+
$10+
----
TTL $70

Sales tax, perhaps?

[taleya.livejournal.com]

I tend to vary.

If it's help on purchasing something (like my older sister did recently) or something that's busted, yeah I'll usually do it for free. They pay any replacement parts, but I'll fit / fix / whatever.

That said, most of my family are Mac fanboys. My older sister and nephew are the only PC ones and they know that if it's their fault, I will take it out of their arses.

Mind you, I have a habit of idiot-proofing systems I work on and they don't try and install shit beyond games without asking what it will do first

Caveat: I'm not just a tech, I'm a full blown nerd and I genuinely enjoy doing this sort of thing, so it works out win/win :)

[silveryrose.livejournal.com]

It depends largely on the family member/friend. Most of them stop asking or pay up after I refuse to do further work for them until they pay the previous invoice. Yes, I really do invoice my own family, it was the only way most of them would take the hint.

Amusingly enough, I've only had one family member ask me about the standard $25 ID10T Fee, most of them just pay it without questioning it :P

[captpackrat.livejournal.com]

I've got a really bad case of the flu.
I've got friends over.
I'm leaving on vacation.
I have a doctor's appointment.
Me no speak English.
I like you as a friend.

Oh wait, this is techsupport.

[grrltechie.livejournal.com]

ooohhhh....nice!

[fragbert.livejournal.com]

I hate math, and sometimes it shows. *grin*

[jecook]

The support group for my work all have their own, special ringtone, so I generally know exactly who's calling at any given moment.

[ravenofdreams.livejournal.com]

I tend to think that if someone calls me at 6 am, it must be important. Plainly I was wrong, but...

[ravenofdreams.livejournal.com]

*best Gru voice* LIGHT. BULB!

[mouser.livejournal.com]

I've had people try to bribe me with "a home cooked meal" but really? I'd rather have the cash for a nice restaurant.

[jimbojones.livejournal.com]

Yes, I really do invoice

This. It's really not hard - give them an hourly rate and a time estimate up front. Make damn sure it's an hourly rate you're willing to work for, at that. Then it's easy - either they pay you an amount you're happy to work for, or they don't. Either way, you win.

The other thing you're likely to learn - fast - is that it's simply not economically feasible to fix most residential users' problems. John/Jane Q. Public, for the most part, tends to accumulate so many hardware and software problems so quickly on computers s/he is left to use unsupervised and recreationally that s/he purely can't afford what it costs to undo the amount of damage done on a regular basis. You lick four completely separate malware issues just to discover registry damage done by a jillion shiny "free" games and utilities and toolbars and what have you, which you get cleared up to then discover bad driver installs and/or dodgy hardware, all of which is on a base system that was cheap and shitty on the day it was purchased, and now it's four years later - and all the OSes and software have progressed in bloat hardware expectations accordingly.

It's easy to find yourself in an all-day quagmire trying to get some residential user's PC into something approximating "good condition" - and if you do, you'll have wasted more value in trying to fix it than it would have cost to just buy new gear in the first place. Hence the whole "economically unsound" bit I started this screed off with to begin.

There are, of course, (plenty of) exceptions - lots of people really do keep their machines in relatively good working order, to the point that it's either economical to repair them or at the very least close enough to justify the expenditure on the user-convenience of not having to reload things / reconfigure things / get used to new things. However, THOSE people are rarely the ones trying to scam into free service - they, for the most part, can afford service, know they can afford service, and will secure service.

The scammers, on the other hand, know damn well it's not economically feasible to service them - that's why they're trying to avoid the economy altogether and get slave labor out of you.

[jimbojones.livejournal.com]

Glad it worked out for you, but you do know that you undercharged pretty badly, right?

On-site service in my neck of the woods - which isn't a particularly expensive one - has run between $75 and $150 an hour for well over ten years now.

All I'm really trying to say here is, if you're only billing $25/hr, I hope you're willing to work for it if somebody calls your bluff. =)

[fragbert.livejournal.com]

I only did it to make a point. Besides, this was 10+ years ago.

[black-spot.livejournal.com]

Only my kid brother phones me up. I live 80 miles away and can't just drop everything to go there. I'm not a tech and he's not great at explaining exactly what has happened. Stopping him using Limewire was a huge step forward - I emailed him loads of horror stories. No problems for 6 months (touch wood).

I knew from what he said that he'd got some vicious malware and the only option was to do a clean restore. I told him to use Spybot and he found it so annoying that it uninstalled it, so I have no sympathy. As he has never made a recovery disc, meant he had to pay someone closer to his home to do it. It took 3 times before he learnt his lesson.

When older brother gave Mum his old computer (thinking he had cleaned it out) and I had to do some work on it re partitions, I said, "So you like Demi Moore a lot?" He blushed.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Oh, presumably it's important to the caller. Maybe. Doesn't mean it's important to the recipient.

This is why I tend to have my cellphone on silent/vibrate 24/7. I'll check my messages when I get up in the morning, and probably be a lot more able to deal with them than if I hadn't gotten enough sleep.

After all, it's fairly presumptuous to assume that people will be available to take calls at 6am, unless they work the night shift or are otherwise well-known for being awake and raring to go at that time.

[kizayaen.livejournal.com]

If I'm on-call, and there's a call from an unknown number, I can't think of a scenario where work'll get pissy if I make them leave a voicemail, then call them back within two minutes.

[kizayaen.livejournal.com]

Good strategy, for the most part, except for the phone calls wanting you to diagnose and fix their computer over the phone right now.

This is why I usually make EVERYONE, including family, leave voicemails. Then: a) I'll know without committing to a time investment whether it's important; or
b) if they're cunning enough to feign something else, then just sorta casually mention that oh, by the way, my computer's misbehaving... I have a plausible "Sorry, I'm busy as hell at the moment and can't talk long, that's why I missed your call to begin with" excuse.

[kizayaen.livejournal.com]

I'd rather skip the meal AND the cash and just not do it in the first place.

But that's me.

[ptstech.livejournal.com]

Totally digging the icon.

[jsbillings]

I used to have a problem with my family recommending me for free tech support, and I started quoting an exorbitant fee (something like $100/hour, minimum 3 hours) to get them to go away. Now, I can just claim I don't use Windows (true), and couldn't help them even if I wanted to (I don't), and they go away. Lately, though, it's been "I want to build a web site," and of course, they don't know the first thing about how the internet works, or that they'd need a yearly budget to host a site. Thank goodness for Google Apps, I tell them to take a look at it and I never hear anything more.

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

It really depends on the person for me. I have a few relatives who I will help out, like my Great Grandparents. They have always been there for me, so I help out when I can. Aside from them, I generally use education, instead of doing it for them. I tell people that I don't do it for free, because I used to, and it wound up being all I did. If they have a problem, I will give them free advice or tell them what they could do to fix it. Ironically enough, it has gotten to where most of them are independent enough that they don't need to ask very much, anymore. I started applying that to the end users I support, too. I tell them what I did to fix a particular problem, and generally they call less and less.

People don't bug me too much about it, because I'm a newlywed who is a full time professional level worker and I go to school full time, too. People seemed to disregard that I work a lot of 12 hour shifts at night, so I started calling them back at like 3AM. That pretty effectively put an end to that.

[biggeek.livejournal.com]

For years I have been giving my Mom hand-me-down computer equipment running Windows XP (and suitably locked down and mom-proofed) because I'm a cheap bastard. Only a few problems cropped up.

Then last year, I bought her a 24" iMac. Apart from fiddling with the settings in Firefox to adjust for her bad vision, it's mom-proofed right out of the box.

[jecook]

I did something similar- I bought mom a 21" last year, largely because her 11+ year old iMac was too old and decrepit for the interwebbernets.

The last time I was over there was largely a matter of telling her what the spreadsheet app was now called, and that yes, you CAN select text when you forward stuff.

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

Anything you're really busy with that early in the morning is either going to be TMI, or is going to trigger lots and lots of prying questions from relatives with way too much time on their hands ..