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"Friends" that need favors.

PhinHater

By PhinHater
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PhinHater

PhinHater

Posted
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So I have been noticing something lately with a few of my "friends".

For the past couple of months I get the following phone calls:

"Hey! How ya doing? Listen, I need help with my computer."

or

"Hey, do you and the the fiance want to come over for dinner tonight? (me, "sure!") While you are here, can you look at my computer?"

or

"Hey, do you and the fiance want to come over for dinner tonight?" (me, "sure!")

Then...we get there for dinner...

"Hey, since you are here can you look at my computer?"

Grrr....

What do I do? Clearly they are not good "friends" like I thought. Do I tell them to go eff off? Do I just start charging?

One of my friends is a 49ers fan and I am the godfather of their child. He invited us over for the Jet game on Sunday and I said yes. On the phone he said you know I am going to need you for your computer knowledge.

Just getting sick of people assuming I am always going to fix their computers and have no problem with it.

What does a little boy like myself do?

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Arsis

Arsis

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You fix computers for a living... Computers are made like ****. If you spend 5 minutes fixing a computer it's not really a big deal. Unless they're only playing with you because you can fix computers than that sucks.

What do they do for a living? Have them help you out. If one of these guys is a doctor have him stick his finger in your ass.

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PhinHater

PhinHater

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You fix computers for a living... Computers are made like ****. If you spend 5 minutes fixing a computer it's not really a big deal. Unless they're only playing with you because you can fix computers than that sucks.

What do they do for a living? Have them help you out. If one of these guys is a doctor have him stick his finger in your ass.

No, I am a web developer and designer for a living. I used to do computer repair and teach it as well at a trade school.

5 minutes?????? No way. They mess up their computers so bad that half the time they get the blue screen of death on their PC and I am forced to take their machine home, reinstall, and deliver it back to them.

Or they get this killer virus where it won't even let me boot into safe mode to clean out their system.

Trust me, if it was a 5 minute deal, then I would not really be complaining.

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PhinHater

PhinHater

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I get the occasional can you fix my computer people too. The best is when they don't understand why they have so many pop ups. STOP CLICKING EVERY ****ING LINK WITH BRIGHT FLASHY COLORS AND YOU WON'T!

lol.

That's what I tell them.

My friend calls me up 2 days ago after I just gave her computer back and says she has all these pop ups again. I just formatted and reinstalled her machine!

I said to her someone clicked on something! She doesn't understand...

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CTM

CTM

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Ha-ha. I know the feeling all to well..

My wife's sisters boyfriend is a real estate agent. I've "helped" him with his computer numerous times and when we were in the market for a house he pulled some listings for me and emailed them to me, never showed me a house or anything like that, just mailed me listings.

I decided to move out of the county and didn't want to use him anymore since I wanted an agent familiar with the area. So I found my own agent and somehow he found out who i was using and faxed her some kind of form to get his name attached to a potential sale as a referrer. My wife called him and asked him WTF was he doing and the SOB had the nerve to say he needed to get paid for his time.

Long story short, it's amazing how many people consider hours spent fixing a computer to not be a legitimate service..

Edited by CTM
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CTM

CTM

Posted
Posted
You fix computers for a living... Computers are made like ****. If you spend 5 minutes fixing a computer it's not really a big deal. Unless they're only playing with you because you can fix computers than that sucks.

What do they do for a living? Have them help you out. If one of these guys is a doctor have him stick his finger in your ass.

5 minutes!!! :eek:

Are you crazy? Most of this crap takes hours, not to mention you have to come to them and bring the fricken thing home if it gets to late...

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PhinHater

PhinHater

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phinhater, take it as a compliment & be glad they think enough of your skills to ask for help. Unless it really bugs you. I don't mind offering free help to friends.

and oh yeah, check your pm box, I have a question regarding my hardrive :mrgreen:

I see your point and I agree with it, but there are never any phone calls or invites anymore unless it involved fixing something. No joke either. Not a hey how ya doing ok talk to you later...not a hope all is well...happy birthday...happy turkey day...

All of them only call now for one reason only.

Got your PM. I'll come over tonight and fix it for you. Can you make dinner?

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Arsis

Arsis

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5 minutes!!! :eek:

Are you crazy? Most of this crap takes hours, not to mention you have to come to them and bring the fricken thing home if it gets to late...

Really? I dunno I fix my own **** and it never takes me longer than 10-15 minutes. I guess it's because I know how to actually know how to use my computer and don't **** it up.

Also, you should beat the **** out of that real estate dude.

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joewilly

joewilly

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I see your point and I agree with it, but there are never any phone calls or invites anymore unless it involved fixing something. No joke either. Not a hey how ya doing ok talk to you later...not a hope all is well...happy birthday...happy turkey day...

All of them only call now for one reason only.

Got your PM. I'll come over tonight and fix it for you. Can you make dinner?

:rl: umm we're actually gonna catch a bite with friends but i'll leave the door open for ya. please feed the goldfish at 7 sharp since yer there anyway.

there are definetely those who take advantage of situations & I'm sure you can see thru these folks.

funny thing bout puters though. of all the help needed it seems this is most popular for gettin yer brain picked. No one wants to lose the use of it & pay a 50 buck mimimum to have it looked at by a shop & wait to get it back unless absolutely neccesary

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joewilly

joewilly

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Posted (edited)
5 minutes!!! :eek:

Are you crazy? Most of this crap takes hours, not to mention you have to come to them and bring the fricken thing home if it gets to late...

with the exception of brenjet, it seems realtors are the most notorious for taking advantage of others. something about that profession makes em greedier than the avg person. I have some cuthroat realtor stories (mostly between themselves) from my numerous dealings that would blow you away.

oops I responded to the wrong post there ctm

Edited by joewilly
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CTM

CTM

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Really? I dunno I fix my own **** and it never takes me longer than 10-15 minutes. I guess it's because I know how to actually know how to use my computer and don't **** it up.

Also, you should beat the **** out of that real estate dude.

That's it Arsis, my computer has only gotten that bad 1 time in like 17 years of daily usage. People who don't know what their doing really jack them up by clicking on all sorts of stupid ****..

And lol, my wife actually took care of him. I was at work and only heard the aftermath. She laid into him real good, bringing up the computer stuff and some other stuff I helped him with over at his house. Apparently she screamed at him and laid into for a good 10 minutes before hanging up on him, he called back later to apologize to her and me..

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PhinHater

PhinHater

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Really? I dunno I fix my own **** and it never takes me longer than 10-15 minutes. I guess it's because I know how to actually know how to use my computer and don't **** it up.

Also, you should beat the **** out of that real estate dude.

That's exactly it. I use macs now, but when I used PCs it would take me no longer than 10 minutes to fix a problem, if i had one.

But like you said...that is because you know what you are doing.

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NIGHT STALKER

NIGHT STALKER

Posted
Posted

I own a military memorabilia business. Guys I served with are always looking for a discount. I figure, what the hell...I'll just make it up with someone I didn't serve with...:eek:

But seriously, I'm a softy when it comes to some of my customers...you wouldn't believe the stuff I give away sometimes.

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JohnnyHector

JohnnyHector

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I own a military memorabilia business. Guys I served with are always looking for a discount. I figure, what the hell...I'll just make it up with someone I didn't serve with...:eek:

But seriously, I'm a softy when it comes to some of my customers...you wouldn't believe the stuff I give away sometimes.

Next time I'm in the market for a some Korean-era 155mm shells, I'll be sure to drop you a line.

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faba

faba

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Posted
I own a military memorabilia business. Guys I served with are always looking for a discount. I figure, what the hell...I'll just make it up with someone I didn't serve with...:eek:

But seriously, I'm a softy when it comes to some of my customers...you wouldn't believe the stuff I give away sometimes.

To be serious what type of items do you have NS?

Myself and my 12 year old nephew are into history and historical items. I have my sports memorbilia collection ongoing.

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PhinHater

PhinHater

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I own a military memorabilia business. Guys I served with are always looking for a discount. I figure, what the hell...I'll just make it up with someone I didn't serve with...:eek:

But seriously, I'm a softy when it comes to some of my customers...you wouldn't believe the stuff I give away sometimes.

That's actually really cool.

What kind of things do you sell?

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Norway'sWaddlingMarmaloof

Norway'sWaddlingMarmaloof

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Posted
Ha-ha. I know the feeling all to well..

My wife's sisters boyfriend is a real estate agent. I've "helped" him with his computer numerous times and when we were in the market for a house he pulled some listings for me and emailed them to me, never showed me a house or anything like that, just mailed me listings.

I decided to move out of the county and didn't want to use him anymore since I wanted an agent familiar with the area. So I found my own agent and somehow he found out who i was using and faxed her some kind of form to get his name attached to a potential sale as a referrer. My wife called him and asked him WTF was he doing and the SOB had the nerve to say he needed to get paid for his time.

Long story short, it's amazing how many people consider hours spent fixing a computer to not be a legitimate service..

What a douche. You should give him a stank-palm at Christmas.

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NJ

NJ

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Really? I dunno I fix my own **** and it never takes me longer than 10-15 minutes. I guess it's because I know how to actually know how to use my computer and don't **** it up.

Also, you should beat the **** out of that real estate dude.

If you have a malware infection of any magnitude AND you can't use a clean system restore date to go back in time - you're looking at a minimum of a couple hours to clean all of it out the right way. It will take that long to just go through the scans. And thats if you have the right tools.

The blessing of Windows XP is most all hardware/software incompatability issues are a thing of the past - and that takes away a lot of the BS&T that went along with all the previous Windows OS.

I know what you mean though Phin - I get called on a lot to lend a hand in computing issues and I dont mind it if it's a friend or family member. After the fix I make sure they have:

A.) good firewall/antivirus (I use Panda) in place

B.) that their systems aren't memory starved

c.) that they're receiving all their Windows and AV updates

If all thats squared away - there usually arent a lot of repeat problems.

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yisman

yisman

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phinhater, take it as a compliment & be glad they think enough of your skills to ask for help. Unless it really bugs you. I don't mind offering free help to friends.

I have people asking for my help regarding computers as well and this is actually how I take it. Maybe I'm a sucker, but I don't mind.

I once was on vacation for Thanksgiving and some guy I don't know (neighbor of relatives) let me use his computer. It was so badly messed up I spent about an hour and a half fixing it. He's a HS teacher and he let kids from his HS use it. They downloaded porn programs and stuff which put tons of malware on his computer. Don't ask me how, but it was interfering with the computer's ability to communicate with the printer and of course he had loads of popups.

I fixed it. No charge. Didn't really get to do much on his computer, though. Just fixing it. I just hope that he's properly grateful if I need a favor in the future. I also hope he listened to my advice about not letting the kids from his HS use it anymore.

Edited by yisman
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PhinHater

PhinHater

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I am the tech support for all my family and friends and have no issue with it. It comes with the territory IMO and I really don't mind it as to me that is what friends are for. I even did work for free for a couple of dudes that post on this site...

Yeah family is fine 100% of the time.

When your friends only call you now to fix computers...then is it ok?

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NIGHT STALKER

NIGHT STALKER

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Posted
hey do you buy military stuff.. and is disrespectful to sell metals that were given to you from a loved one that passed on?

You mean do I purchase collections? No. And as far as selling medals, why would you want to do that? I'll tell you this though. If they are "named" medals and what I mean by that is, if these are medals that have a name on the backside, they sell pretty well on Ebay.

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ZachEY

ZachEY

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Just **** up really badly. So that when you leave, the little problem they had is now a huge problem. No one will bother you for help anymore.

The funny thing with me is people assume I know anything about computers because I work on high end ones every day. People ask me for help when in reality, I can build them a professional HD editing system in an afternoon, but if their printer isn't working, well I have no clue.

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