Tech Support is not 9 to 5
So today I had another friend of mine ask for help with there computer. Now normally I help my friends with problems whenever they ask. I am a nice guy, why not be as helpful as I can to people I like? That was the question I asked my co-worker when he overheard what I was doing. He gave me a bit of advice I am going to try and take to heart about not just handing out free tech support, and here is why.
There is this notion today, that because someone works with technology you should just take all of your problems there. This seems like a simple enough notion, but when I really broke it down it just seems really unfair when compared to other professions or aptitudes. Let me give you a few examples: If you were to have a friend who worked as a janitor for a large building, you wouldn’t call him up and ask him to come clean your house. At most you might call him and ask him if he knows how to get out a fairly bad stain on a rug. Now if that friend were to say that his building doesn’t have any carpeted rooms, you would accept that answer and not even think for a second he was any less of a janitor. Most people I know wouldn’t think twice about asking a friend who worked with technology of any kind to come fix a computer. Beyond that, even if I was just asked a question about say how to use a program on a mac, or how to set up a palm phone, or how to sync a blackberry to a machine running windows vista, if I answer that I don’t work with that software/hardware so I don’t know, most people will tell me that I should look it up for them and more still will walk away with the impression that I am not a very good tech support worker.
I work just as hard, and have had just the same level of training as an auto mechanic, or a stock broker, or any number of professional positions. Most of the time when I fix someones computer, phone, or any technical device I get maybe a plate of some baked good, or a meal that night while i am working. I am not a car person, so when I had a serious problem with my car a few years back I asked someone I knew to help fix it. He did, and even though he wasn’t doing it at his job, I still payed him in cash about what he would have been payed to do it in his shop. I think most people would do the same thing. If I worked on your computer for an hour and asked you for twenty five dollars, most people would freak out and call me a poor friend.
I don’t want to give you the impression that I have never had a positive experience working on technology outside of the office. I have had people pay me for my time and most of the time I don’t care. I just would like to set up a few ground rules for those of you reading this about contacting your techy friends for help:
1. Before you ask a question about technology to a friend, think about this. If this was a question about cleaning, would you ask your friend who worked as a janitor?
2. Before you request a friend to come fix your technology, consider if you would ask a friend who was a cook to come cook this thing for you, or if you would ask your mechanic friend to come fix a similarly difficult car problem? If you would, what level of payment would you expect to give that person.
3. Understand that just like the super cleaning solution, the cool little car fix, and the nice dinner recipe you found online, odds are if you google what is wrong, you will find an answer you can use. If you are scared about that third one there, don’t be. Five years ago search engines might be hard to use, and might have contained poor information.
Try googling “Virus Scan” or “Adware Removal” or “Malware Removal”. The first link on everyone of those is an amazing program.
