I can't get the PC you prepared for me for free to work!

Posted by 1mAfraidofAmericans@reddit | talesfromtechsupport | View on Reddit | 81 comments

This isn't mine, I'm not an IT guy, but my good friend is. We car pooled for years and remain friends to this day, and he tells me lots of his tales of tech support and how infuriating it can be, and how he sometimes hates people in general.

Recently, a common acquaintance was shopping around for a new laptop, and I told her to ask my IT friend who she also knew, as he's great at indicating the kind of machine they need and that usually saves them money.

Our common acquaintance went a step further and asked him to buy it for her, and install Windows and Office and set it up for her.

After having done that for free, it should be said, he got an angry phone call from her saying that the webcam wasn't working, and how she had specifically told him to check the webcam, and all sorts of complaints about his work.

I can only imagine he sighed, or took a deep breath and counted to ten, because he didn't tell her to go f*ck herself or hang up, but diagnosed the problem. She said the screen was black but she could hear sound. He said:

"Remove the webcam cover."

And I understand perfectly well why sometimes he hates people.

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Mean-Bus-1493@reddit

Never let anyone know you work in IT.

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redhairarcher@reddit

This is why I rarely do any support for friends/family. Mostly it ends up in "you did something and now something unrelated is not working, fix it now you broke it!!!!"

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FireLucid@reddit

You installed a game 6 months ago, now we have a virus, thanks kids. No, of course it didn't come from this emoji toolbar I downloaded for my email.

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Clean_Inspector6133@reddit

That 'for free' part is key. It seems to unlock a special level of entitlement where they expect you to solve every future user error too.

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Forward_Deer9230@reddit

Your monitor is dark because the backlight is dead. It has nothing to do with the anti-virus updates I did for you 2 weeks ago.

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billh492@reddit

Ya know after you fixed my computer the refrigerator stopped working. You need to come fix it.

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JohnClark13@reddit

years ago I let my mom sell one of my old laptops at her garage sale (after thoroughly wiping). Thing was barely able to run, and she sold it to a guy for $20. She then went on to give the guy my number in case he had any issues. I would get random phone calls from the guy every few months, mostly because the wifi would stop working because he would accidentally hit the wifi button (which was on the front of the laptop for some reason). Finally, like 5 years later, he called again and this time I just blocked his number.

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jmjedi923@reddit

i'd have tore my mom a new one if she gave my number out like that

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1mAfraidofAmericans@reddit (OP)

IMHO, it also leads to more favours, and more, and after that more. And if you say no more, they are absolutely enraged and offended

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Apprehensive_Food938@reddit

Mate of mine always replied to support requests,"No sorry I dont work with those machines. I only work with Servers" or words to that effect. Worked

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JohnClark13@reddit

Start saying no to everyone. Not only will it greatly reduce your stress, you will find out quickly who your real friends are and who just needed a "computer person".

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joerice1979@reddit

The sentence opener of "Ever since you..." makes my blood run cold.

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EvilPowerMaster@reddit

It's right up there with "Can't you just..."

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Thin-Government5409@reddit

“Can’t you just” should be deleted from the English language.

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EngineersAnon@reddit

Can't you just take care of that?

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EruditeLegume@reddit

and "While you're here..."

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rapsney@reddit

Special mention “just a quick question…”

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songbolt@reddit

Listening to "Catholic Answers Live", catholic.com's question-and-answer call in show, I was amazed how, whenever the caller would say that, it never was.

"Just a quick question, ((lots of unnecessary context and useless details))"

I now believe they have a subconscious understanding that they are long-winded, that people have been exasperated with them in the past, so they try to counter this, as if to increase the patience in their listener, by promising it won't again be that-annoying-thing-I-do.

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songbolt@reddit

lol I used to be that guy, because from my own home use I figured it would only take a minute or two

I now have life (work) experience to understand my home is not a corporate office, and any given request may involve multiple policies, security clearances, and might not work due to other software -- so it's not "just one more minute of your time" but an entire second support ticket.

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katmndoo@reddit

Right? I finally started issuing disclaimers and telling MIL exactly what I’d done or not done.

No, pressing the unmute button did not cause your printer to start streaking.

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wiggum_x@reddit

Years ago, I installed a game on my ex's PC that we were going to play together. SIX MONTHS LATER, he had an issue with his PC, and he pulled out that old chestnut.

Yes, the game I installed did it. Everything worked fine for six months, and then it created an issue. Not you clicking OK and Accept on everything that pops up without reading it. Not you going to any sketchy website without a worry at all. It was definitely something I did. And you have every right to be angry and yell at me about it.

Ex for a reason(s) y'all.

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joerice1979@reddit

Well, it was fine before you installed the game and not fine after, absolute unassailable facts! Just facts that completely ignored other unassailable facts.

One client angrily pulled a wireless access point from its mounting like a gorilla.migjt pull a tree trunk out of its way because Outlook borked.

You guessed it; "Ever since you installed this thing!".... Two months ago...

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rainformpurple@reddit

That's a banger. Especially when they bought a new device and didn't tell you, but somehow it's your fault that whatever isn't working when you've never even seen the device. That's when I tell them to never call me again.

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curtludwig@reddit

This is why I try so hard not to touch anything other than the thing I'm specifically engaged to do. If you touch it you immediately own it...

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musthavesoundeffects@reddit

I only fox three peoples computers, my mom’s, my wife’s, and my own. Everyone else can get fucked.

Ok I lied, I will fix my nephews computer but only on holidays when he gets new hardware and needs a hand getting it working. He is getting better at it though and doesn’t like to ask for help. Great kid.

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Weird1Intrepid@reddit

I only fox three peoples computers

Have you tried rabbiting them instead?

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Floresian-Rimor@reddit

Sounds like you can pass the baton onto him sometime soon.

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jhuseby@reddit

Change rarely to never and you will have ascended. I stopped doing that shit a couple years into my career. It’s literally not worth it. There’s no way they can pay you what it’s worth to you without ruining the relationship. And you don’t always know what you’re getting into when you say you’ll look at something. The one issue could balloon into a giant one, or they may have a dozen other things they ask you to do once you show up.

I’d highly recommend just saying no.

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jonas_ost@reddit

If you have good people around you this is never a problem.

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ichbinverwirrt420@reddit

What kind of friends/family do ya‘ll have?

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rskurat@reddit

or specifically saying "this machine can't handle Windows 11, don't update it" and then they go ahead like idiots. Laptop slows to a crawl, my fault obvs

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CommercialHope6883@reddit

Everything is the fault of the last tech that touched the device.

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himitsumono@reddit

To be fair, the webcam cover on some laptops is all but invisible and sometimes sits right about where you'd park your thumb when you open the cover. And when the users don't even KNOW that there's a webcam cover, you have a severe case of uninformed user meets *severely* bad design.

Lookin' at you, Lenovo.

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flecktonesfan@reddit

You know what's worse? When you, as the call center agent, weren't aware that the newest laptop model had built in camera covers, when none of the previous models had them. That's 2 hours of my life I wish I had back.

And yes, it was a Lenovo, and yes it was exactly as you described. She'd inadvertently closed the cover while opening or closing the laptop, and didn't know the cover existed. Her camera just "stopped working".

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tessler65@reddit

The built-in webcam cover has caused more issues for us!

Several years ago it was common for a sticky note to be stuck over the webcam by the user. Then vendors started giving away branded webcam covers at conferences; just stick it in place and slide the cover back and forth.

Now that the cover is built into the frame of the screen, most users have no clue it is there and we get so many complaints about the webcam not working during meetings, and then so much embarrassment when a tech walks in and flips the cam cover open.

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shaggy24200@reddit

And the stupid thing is it can be disabled by software anyway so covers are stupid, but the general public is paranoid.

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collinsl02@reddit

Except common spyware software can activate the webcam and deactivate the "on" light so it's not a baseless concern. A physical cover prevents that.

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suncontrolspecies@reddit

paranoid? "disabled by software", right.. but no, that's not enough

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OhmHomestead1@reddit

This is why I don’t do tech support for family/friends. My husbands step-mom called him because the Roku wouldn’t work. He handed the phone to me. Asked her if she power cycled the device. She said she turned it on/off. I said no power cycle by unplugging for 10-20 secs then plugging it back in. After her getting frustrated with me I told her look power cycle is the best fix other than doing a factory reset and having to reset up all apps and logging into all of them plus the wifi connection. That I intentionally don’t help with tech stuff because I do it for work and that I don’t appreciate getting the same attitude from family that I get from strangers. Got her a Kindle, set it up for her and told her she just needed to charge it like once a month. She tossed the cord out and annoyed at me for her tossing the cord out.

She has since been sour to me but no more tech calls.

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DiligentCockroach700@reddit

This is the first rule of support. If you do anything to help a friend or family member, for ever more anything that goes wrong will be your fault! Doesn't just apply to computers either. "Since you painted my front door, my oven doesn't work any more!"

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MaDNiaC@reddit

It's called "no good deed goes unpunished" in the biz. A common phenomenon.

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1947-1460@reddit

I’m thankful every day I only do hardware support for my mother in law. Software support falls to her daughter, my wife.

The biggest issue is MIL doesn’t read pop-ups and just clicks Ok. And doesn’t listen to, or argues with my wife when she tells he mom something.

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jmjedi923@reddit

god i hate it when people try to argue like they know better. My old room mate did that and I'm waiting for them to reach out with tech issues and start arguing with me so I can tell them to figure it out on their own

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HerfDog58@reddit

I do limited stuff for family and a couple friends. Anyone else that asks for my technical expertise, I tell them my rate is $175/hour, 4 hour minimum charge regardless of how long it takes me, paid in advance. Any additional paid upon completion of work. And I determine when that has occurred.

Just about everyone has stopped asking, which was my intent.

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msanangelo@reddit

out of curiosity, what happens if a rich person agreed to that rate?

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17HappyWombats@reddit

Take the money. People like that are either you work for them once, take the money then block their number.

Or they're the other sort of rich people. And they will, if you agree, pass you number to their friends. The people I worked for were really appreciative and always apologetic when they rang me at odd hours. Mostly it was just emails "can you pop over sometime this week, I bought a new microphone and the dictation software doesn't like it". Sure, I ring and set up a time, go over, spend 10 minutes reassuring them that they're not as stupid as they feel, get my $100 cash and wander off.

What they're paying for is the house call and watching while you do it to make sure you don't open their financial apps or anything else skeevy. You being polite and helpful, and taking the time to explain things if they want to know, that's just assumed. You help them, they're likely to help you with anything from "do you want this fridge I'm replacing" to "a friend needs a full time IT person in their company".

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DanNeely@reddit

I can't speak for OP but the point of an F*you Rate is that it's the minimum you'd need to actually accept doing something you have no desire to do.

For example, my rate for VB6 or MS Access coding is $10,000 per hour. 2000 hours minimum. Paid in advance.

I have no desire to ever do it; but for the opportunity to retire in financial comfort a year from now....

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HerfDog58@reddit

I can't speak for OP but the point of an F*you Rate is that it's the minimum you'd need to actually accept doing something

No, that's exactly why I do it - most people won't want to pay that much, so I won't have to do the work. I do this for a living, to pay my bills. When my work day is done, the last thing I want to do is more work. That's MY time.

But if they're going to hand me cash, I'll fix their problem. And once I'm done, I'm DONE. If they call asking for more help, or asking questions to try to get free help, I'll just say NOPE. Unless the money is going to pay for that first class plane ticket for my vacation.

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HerfDog58@reddit

I'd take the CASH, and fix the problem. I'd also make it clear I'm doing it at MY discretion, and there's no guarantee or commitment that I would do so again in the future. It's a one time deal, unless I CHOOSE to say yes in the future.

And if he's not paying cash, I ain't doing the work. If he wants it for his company, my rate goes up to $325 an hour, 4 hour minimum, in cash, up front.

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marc45ca@reddit

there was discussion in r/sysadmin a while back on the issue of businesses giving old computers to staff members.

the consensus was it easier to simple send them recycle because employees would turn around and then expect support on their free fcomputer.

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1mAfraidofAmericans@reddit (OP)

Holy shit! I'm glad that happens because I buy reconditioned pcs instead of new ones

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scyllafren@reddit

"Do you see a small red dot at the center of the camera? Yes? Then the privacy slider is on, please slide it to the right to open it." :)

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Ix_fromBetelgeuse7@reddit

To be fair, that red dot always confuses me. In my mind it should be red as a warning that hey, your camera is uncovered and someone could potentially spy on you. But I probably watch too many movies

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MadmanIgar@reddit

Yeah, ima red dot was always how a digital camera would convey that you’re recording

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Stryker_One@reddit

So, the red dot is NOT part of a point and click interface?

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itsadile@reddit

Some discrete webcam models have a LED that activates if the camera is running.

On laptops with a privacy shutter, the shutter is sometimes red so that you can see that it's blocking the laptop's built-in camera.

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Stryker_One@reddit

I was referring to something like this.

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Poulticed@reddit

I know. I've seen you.....

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ALazy_Cat@reddit

I'd say it should be red if it's on

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vampyrewolf@reddit

I've been doing tech support for friends, family, and friends of family for 30 years. I always do the first job free, and that has been everything from a full build to just clearing cache.

The next time it's $20/hr, rounded up to the next hour but only charging for keyboard time. I don't care if it takes 2 evenings to reinstall an OS and set it up, it takes me about 4hrs of physical hands-on time.

Cheap enough that they're happy to call me, expensive enough that they're willing to spend 5min on the phone following instructions before handling over a machine because they can't connect to wifi.

I've only returned 3 or 4 machines that I either didn't have the time for, or were physically damaged when I got em.

One of those was a couple years ago... Handed a machine missing the optical drive, half the screws in the bottom plate, and a broken bezel... "It's not working". Managed to boot it from a USB stick, as well as another test drive... But they didn't want to pay for a new drive or my time to set up.

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KnottaBiggins@reddit

I'm a notary public. I do notarizations for friends and family for free. Why? Because they're always very straight forward. And they will always defer to me on those.
When I was an IT tech, my "family rate" was $100/hr with a a 2 hour minimum.

I will look at your ID and register it in my journal for free. But when it comes to you telling me how and why what I'm doing is wrong, even though you admitted you didn't know this stuff and I do, well, I just don't need that aggravation.

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Specialist_Current98@reddit

This is why you never do IT work for free!

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joerice1979@reddit

Deliberately never taking money for any "friend job" has worked out quite well for me thus far, setting the transaction as purely karmic, but sooner or later I'm sure I'll encounter one like your friend did who puts more value on their inconvenience than my charity.

People, eh?

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jhuseby@reddit

What a bunch of bastards

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1mAfraidofAmericans@reddit (OP)

People!

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ExtremeFamous7699@reddit

I have been out for a few years, 9 or 10 and just tell my family that things have moved on so fast and I didn’t keep up with things so I can’t help them.

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The-Wizard-of-Goz@reddit

This is why I like cats

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atombomb1945@reddit

This is a weekly occurrence at my job. Last minute requests, little to no information about what is needed, users who expect the computer to stand up and bow when they walk into the room. Then we get the calls that come in. They put in one ticket for something and then submit five more for issues they have after the fact, and they are little things that could be fixed if they just opened their eyes.

I replaced a computer over the summer for one user, she sent in six tickets the next day for things like "The sound doesn't work, I need new speakers." when I forgot to plug the old speakers in. "I can't print anything." due to the fact that Win 11 looks different than Win 10 so the printers are arranged differently.

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LolitaLouise@reddit

Haha stand up and bow 😂

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Eckx@reddit

This is exactly why I chose not to have a career in tech support. I am not a people person.

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emax4@reddit

The assembly is free. You only pay me handsomely for tech support!

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Izarial@reddit

IT work is a quick trip to hating people, especially if you’ve ever worked retail tech support. I’m so glad I’m a sysadmin now and don’t have to deal with people beyond my team much.

Funny story the company I worked for used to do this big event where they got the entire company free tickets for six flags, and I worked there as a desktop support person, so my face was known by EVERYONE. I never ever went to 6 flags for free, because to me it’s better to pay to only have the people I want with me, and let everyone else be strangers. If I went with coworkers back then I’d have gotten tech questions ALL DAY.

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HFY_HFY_HFY@reddit

You think people would ask you tech questions at six flags?

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AnfreloSt-Da@reddit

Absolutely! We own a tech repair shop. My spouse and I get tech questions at church, at the grocery store, and at gatherings. We get calls after 9pm (which we don’t answer) and early morning texts (which I answer during business hours). Oh, yeah, people ask.

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tboReddit@reddit

My father-in-law sent me a text saying he received a PDF file that he couldn't print and he couldn't forward it either. Did I have any recommendation?

I told him not to print it.

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wisym@reddit

You should never do anything for free. Make them give you something for it. My friends and family rate is that you have to give me $50 or you have to make me something. Either way, you're spending time or money to cover what I am helping you with. By making them have skin in the game, it forces value on what you are doing for them.

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Impossible_IT@reddit

Years ago coworkers would ask me to troubleshoot their computer issues. I only asked for a case of beer. They really never took advantage of me. No “ownership” issues…you touched it, now you’re my tech support.

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gvarsity@reddit

The problem with helping like this is they often think now you are their tech guy and you will get “emergency” calls from them. So other than my mother I don’t do this anymore. Just too much of a headache. Used to do private IT consulting as a side hustle and I had a price sheet and had to stick to it. That is the friend and family rate.

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