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.

So this is the story about how Greenbriar Rentals in Bowling Green Ohio screwed my roommates and me over our rental agreement.

The story starts with our current apartment. This year we live in a townhouse rented by greenbriar and we were happy with the place when we moved in. They have a strict rule against having any pets and we own a couple of cats, but they had always exercised a “don’t ask don’t tell” sort of policy on it. We lived with them for two straight years prior to today and I had lived with them in an additional year before then. They were, and to date, are the only rental company I have ever rented with. I had always felt they were strict and a bit pigheaded, but they were cheap and they rarely bothered us, so I lived with them. Over the years I had noticed several of the town houses near mine contained a variety of pets including dogs, cats, snakes, rodents, and birds. A year and a half ago we got a cat and lived happily for over a year, even after we switched town houses. Then we got a letter saying we had to get rid of the cat and so of course we were in the wrong and we did.

So we go looking for a place to live this coming year. We look everywhere else in town for any other rental company. We find a few nice places, but nothing that will fit all of our needs. Some places look awful, some don’t take pets, and some only have 2 bedrooms. After a couple of months, greenbriar updates their website to say that pets are aloud:

Now I could argue all day with them on how stupid this picture makes them look. One line saying no pets in bold followed an inch later on the printed page with an add-on that is for houses with pets but you know, they just added these places, so whatever.

These new houses are a little higher then I was looking to spend, but you know for everything we want; I am willing to pay the premium. I make good money, so why not love the places I live?

So we set up a walkthrough of an apartment. They look wonderful, but as we are walking through our choice house the guy leading our tour mentions that they just rented this place for just the summer, but it would be open again in the fall. We do notice that no one lives in this, or many of the other houses, so we ask to look at another one nearby. This one is even nicer, so we say hey why not.

We go back to put our half of a deposit down, and ask a few questions. We ask if we can get rid of the washer and dryer provided because they are coin operated in our own house and replace them with the washer and dryer we were connived to buy because they were not provided in our old apartment, which they also rented. The woman does not know and suggests we ask later, and we shrug it off assuming it would be something we could work out later. They inform us that there will be an additional charge each month for the pet. Now we are already paying 1,100 dollars for our deposit, instead of 270, because of the pet. Over twelve months that would be almost 70 bucks extra a month, but whatever the 30 dollar a month fee is not going to break me, I deal with it grudgingly.

We ask them if we can change the move in date, because it is set to May 1^st, and we live with them in another place until May 30^th. The place is empty anyway, and has yet to be rented about a month before their date starts anyway. No deal, because that would break their preset dates. Never mind the fact that someone else was able to move in from just May till August, the idea that instead of skipping out of 9 months we just wanted 29 days, that is too much for them.

We are then asked to get parental agreements before we can sign the lease. We have always had to have these before because we were all students, but this year for once I am living with no students at all. I ask what the policy is for non-students and am informed we can either get the forms signed or pay 35 dollars a person to get a credit check run. Well, I know my parents and they trust me, so a piece of signed paper is worth less than 35 dollars so we agree. Now this already was bugging me a little because I have lived with these people for four full years, and never missed rent by a day. Also my roommates and I combined have lived with them for nine years, and none of us have ever missed any rent. As lame as it is though, whatever, I will get over that.

So moving on, I go and get my agreement signed in front of a notary. The form asks for my mother’s SSN, but the teller suggests to us that she feels that form has no legal right to have such a request on it, so my mother doesn’t add it.

So now, today. We show up as scheduled today to sign our lease. I am told right off the bat that I have to have my mother add her SSN because it is required. When I ask why they suggest that that number will be needed for any legal documents in the case they are needed. The fact that my mother was required to show ID in front of a notary proving she was not lying, and the SSN could easily have been made up later, but you know whatever. Now already mad I make the drive across down with my roommate to get my mom to add her number.

We get back to hear my other roommate arguing about the washer and dryer which are apparently things we cannot remove. Someone will come into our house once a month or so to collect the change, and if they are disconnected we will be kicked out. What. After this same agency suggested we buy a washer and dryer for their cheaper living option, we are not expected to live in an overpriced home and basically have a laundry mat in our house? How stupid is that.

We bite our tongue and start to read over the other addendum for our pets. We notice right off all of the official documentation lists we will have a pet, not pets as we have asked about earlier. We ask and are informed we cannot have more than one pet. Apparently a 35 pound dog is fine, but two cats less than ten pounds each, those are not okay. Don’t worry that all of the ads said “pets” that of course was just a play. We complain and they take it to the owners, who turn us down. I ask if I can pay the fee twice a month for two pets, nope. So we ask if we can get our money back, this is all just too much bitter taste and we want out.

We are then shown the agreement on the down payment which lists the idea that we put half of our deposit down just for them to hold the apartment and as the first thing we were made to do today was pay the rest of our deposit, we cannot have any of that back. I can, perhaps, understand keeping our first half of the deposit because it was off the market for two weeks, but keeping it all is just too much. I burst out angry. Hell the place is empty anyway, if no one lived in it all year, who the heck was waiting on it anyway.

We sat and talked it out. We decided to somehow get rid of one of the cats. We can’t lose the 1,100 deposit. So we are stuck living with them.

I will admit outright here that a few of these problems were us not reading and simply trusting this company to not treat us like shit. I am not writing this to complain, or to try and fix my plight. The point of this is that so you will read it, and not rent from greenbriar.