POLL: Hate being "the computer guy" in the family?

[conjur]

It was fun at first but after a few years, don't you hate being the only one in the family (and let's toss in in-laws and neighbors, too) that knows beans about computers?

Love my father-in-law but spending two hours setting up a printer and explaining the reasoning as to why a driver for an older HP printer won't work with the newer one (and how the new scanner is better/different than the older one) just wasn't my idea of how to spend my Christmas Day. Oh, and toss in a sister-in-law who just doesn't seem to understand how the Internet works (They have @Home cable modem but she still is determine to keep an AOL subscription so she can surf the web - hunh??? Gave up long ago trying to convince her otherwise).

:frown:

 

[SWScorch]

Yes it does get annoying after a while. Especially since my father, who knows a fair amount, is always working on some computer and wants me to help him format or install windows or something.

Luckily I got a shirt for christmas that says "No I will not fix your computer." I'm wearing it now as a matter off act. I got it from www.thinkgeek.com

 

[Kaervak]

I'm not the only computer guy in the family, but I usually get the most of the "help me with my problem" deals.

 

[bacillus]

I give them 1 hour free time then I start charging!

 

[Tauren]

Yes! I get calls at all hours of the day and night from friends and family. Even worse, is here at work. I get frustrated sometimes and just tell them to call the IS department.

 

[BigJohnKC]

I don't hate it, but I do hate how my family gives up even trying to fix anything when I come around, especially my mother. We just bought her a new computer for Christmas, one I built, and I put XP on it, but she's never used it before, so I got all the stupid questions up front. "What's this? What do I do now?" Worst part was I forgot the sound card drivers at home when I went to the parents' house, so I said I'd send them in the mail, but that was refused immediately...."you can fix it next time you come for a visit"......uhhh, okay, no sound for a few months, eh? <shrug>No problem..... </shrug>

 

[Red Dawn]

I yell at them or make fun of then so they don't ask anymore

 

[SonicFlux]

If you think it's bad now, wait until you make a career out of it! I had one employee from our Mexico region look up my home number and phone me on a Sunday at midnight because he was having trouble showing his kid a funny web link!?!?! *sigh*

 

[acebathound]

"Where'd my toolbar go?" =) That's always a good one. Kinda glad most of my relatives are hundreds of miles away. Got to go in and visit my Aunt for the holidays who's probably gonna want her computer fixed b/c she somehow manages to mess up software all the time -- and Internet Explorer, Netscrape and Opera no longer worked in her regular account, so she has to use the Administrator account. I'm sure when I start working on the computer she'll have 50 programs running in the taskbar like those weather things, etc. *sigh*

 

[Sketcher]

Family started buying crappy computers and making poor software choices so I made some suggestions and now I'm the hub for tech support.

Was great to help for the first couple of years but now referring the fam to their hardware/software vendors rather than squeezin' in the time. I'm encouraging them to learn about their computers and I'm refusing to fix problems that they should learn on their own.

One nice thing however, I'm slowly getting everyone to run XP so whenever there's a problem that's not e-mail/quick phone call fixable I just access their computers remotely and fix them myself.

 

[atrowe]

As a general rule, if a friend or relative asks me anything that they could find the answer to themselves in less than 20 minutes or so on Google, I'll tell them to go find the answer themselves. If they've put a reasonable effort into fixing whatever problem they're having prior to asking me, I usually don't mind helping out, but when a person keeps asking inane questions that they obviously made no effort to answer on their own, that's when I start getting PO'ed.

As a general rule, I don't mind terribly helping others with their computers. I know computers better than most of my family, and I don't mind when they come to me for help. I don't know much about plumbing or cars, and I do not hesitate to solicit help from other family members when my car won't start or the toilet's clogged. It all works out in the end.

 

[wildwildwes]

I don't really mind because it's easy and it scores me points with family and friends, and with everyone else I make a few bucks.

I wouldn't build anyone a computer though.

 

[Electric Amish]

I enjoy it. I was called over to my SIL's last night at 9pm to hook-up their new printer.

It's the only thing I'm useful for anyway.

amish

 

[trmiv]

<< As a general rule, if a friend or relative asks me anything that they could find the answer to themselves in less than 20 minutes or so on Google, I'll tell them to go find the answer themselves. If they've put a reasonable effort into fixing whatever problem they're having prior to asking me, I usually don't mind helping out, but when a person keeps asking inane questions that they obviously made no effort to answer on their own, that's when I start getting PO'ed.
>>




That's the problem with my friend's, that make that reasonable effort before asking me, but by doing so, they usually screw the computer up even more than it was to begin with. One time, one of my friends could not get his zip drive to work no matter what he did. So I go take a look at it, and he had a damn floppy cable shoved onto an IDE zip drive! In order to get the obviously smaller floppy connector to fit on the IDE port of the zip drive, he pushed it on there until the extra pins bent to the side!! I was amazed when I saw this. I said (he's a cop), "and they let you carry a freaking gun?!?!?!?!"

 

[Swag1138]

I agree with Amish. Im no good with anything else, I might as well help them with their computers.

What amazes me is my uncle, who built all 4 systems in his house, still has no idea how to get his computers running decently with Windows. They were fast machines (700 MHz and up) and ran slower than both my Celery 366, and my PII 233. I took out a lot of the bloat for him, and they work fine now. I just dread the day when he tries to take out the bloat himself, and I get a call

 

[NikPreviousAcct]

No, I don't mind being the computer guy in the family. I can answer a lot of questions and it basically ensures that things don't get screwed up; family won't touch computer problems at all and I won't touch things that I don't know about (anymore anyway ).

When I don't know what's going on, I call Viper GTS and whine like a baby.

Nik

 

[Lithium381]

It's really not that big of a deal, but i feel bad when i can't fix stuff for people....i geuss it's more for me than for them when i fix it, as a challenge for myself

 

[azazyel]

My problem is that I know more about computers than anyone in my family but because I am the youngest no one listens. So I just go arround saying, "Told you so."

 

[Ornery]

I've been overwhelmed by it during this Christmas season. The most recent one made me want to scream! You just can't seem to do enough and I don't hear much in the way of thanks. Mostly just get a whiny phone call or email demanding an answer to a problem. I'm about ready to... I don't know what, but I've had it up to here! :disgust:

 

[conjur]

<< My problem is that I know more about computers than anyone in my family but because I am the youngest no one listens. So I just go arround saying, "Told you so." >>



I could add another option to the poll (No, but I want to be) but...trust me, you're better off!

 

[Geekbabe]

It was annoying at first but my family's actually pretty good around computers..Some of my friends though are another story

 

[TheBlondOne]

Well, I'm the "computer chick," and yes, I hate it.

I get called @ school, I get yelled up to @ home: SARAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! Come see this warning! What does it mean???

*shakes her head* geeze!

--Sarah

 

[conjur]

<< Well, I'm the "computer chick," and yes, I hate it. >>



Perhaps I should make the PC Poll PC?

 

[Alienwho]

Everytime I see my grandpa, without fail he says, "Why don't you come up to my house and fix my computer, it's giving me all these errors everytime I boot up". I'm like, yes grandpa, maybe next week. But there is no way I'm going to do it, because i'm going to fix it, then he's going to install all his crap again and get those same errors and tell me I didn't do it right and I need to come and do it again.

Oh and my mom, she asks me some question in word perfect and I tell her that it's not like I memorized how to do every single thing in word perfect, but I know how to do it because i'll take 5 seconds and USE THE FREAKING HELP FILE. Sheesh, go into the index, type in whatever you're looking for and it will give you a step by step how to do it.

 

[perry]

<< Luckily I got a shirt for christmas that says "No I will not fix your computer." I'm wearing it now as a matter off act. I got it from www.thinkgeek.com >>



I sent my mom the link to that shirt a few months ago as a joke, and she bought it for me.

I really hate being the computer guy. My grandma calls me all the time telling me the printer is broken. I'll go over (hopefully she's not home), print something, and tell her it works just fine for me. But the last time I went over, she was there, and wanted to show me what doesn't work. So she loads up her bank page and tells me to print out some crap about her accounts. I press print, and it prints just fine. But she insists that not everything is there. I sit there for 15 minutes going through each line on the screen and showing it to her on the page. Turns out her bank has changed the interface (I think, I dunno, she couldn't find a page of what it used to print) and because everything isn't in the same place, she blames it on the printer. Now she thinks that I don't know what I'm doing on computers. Good. Maybe she won't call me any more!

Or her neighbor, just yesterday. He got a CD with a few card games on it for Christmas and couldn't install it. The instructions says to do Start -> Run -> D:\CDSETUP (or replace D with the letter of your CD-ROM drive). He had left a message on my mom's phone saying that his CD-ROM drive was broken and needed replacing, but wanted me to take a look at it first. So I go over, open My Computer, see that his CD is E:, and put E:\CDSETUP in the box. He thought I was some sort of computer genius! All I did was read the instructions!

And one of my grandma's friends bought a new computer and was having trouble getting the printer going, and mentioned it to my mom in passing... hoping she would volunteer my services. When she told me that, I said if he asks, tell him for $25 I'll go set it up.