My dad...and that goddamn computer

[protege]

I actually heard about this from my mother...

Some background:

Back in February, my dad had been having some issues with his computer. He'd been bitching about it for awhile, so when he and my mother were on their cruise, I brought his computer to my place, and took care of it. 2 days later, I had all the Micro$haft updates installed, all the spyware/viruses gone, along with the million-or-so toolbars that he'd installed. It was as-new when I was done with it.

Tonight, I find out that the shit hit the fan. Or rather...the hard drive. The cheap drive that was in his cheap HP apparently failed. There were either some bad sectors or the data was corrupted. Whatever it was, Windows was toast. Somehow, instead of being the fault of penny-pinching, he actually blamed *me* for it.

Seriously? I fix computers for a living...and it's my fault? Fuck that shit. Since it was my "fault" he decided to drive across town and have Joe Blow's Computer Service deal with it...to the tune of $300

Yep, three-hundred-fucking-dollars. I could have had that drive out, put it in one of my spare machines, pulled off his data, and he would have been out only about $75 for the cost of a new hard drive and possibly a beer or two. He would have had his computer fixed totally--all drivers, software, etc. It would have been done quickly and correctly.

I do this shit all day--I've built computers, I'm responsible for servicing a dozen or so at work. I've had most of them apart over the years. I've been messing around with computers since TI 99-4/A and CP/M days. I'm not an expert by *any* means, but I do know quite a bit.

The $300 bit isn't what pissed me off. No, I'm pissed about being blamed for "fucking it up" even though what I did was back in February...plus the phone call from him about 2 hours ago.

Seems that he couldn't get on the internet...and wanted my help with that. Again, back the truck up here. You blame me for "fucking it up" but you want my help now? Pissed, I told him to find the driver disc for his network card, look up the settings, and fix it himself.

I mean, in his eyes, the one computer class he took in 1975 makes him an expert, yet the constant knowledge I've picked up since about 1981/2 makes me an idiot, right?

[HYHYBT]

Expecting help from you after that shows an impressive amount of gall. The whole "you worked on it, it's broken, so it's your fault no matter how much time passed or that it's a totally different issue" thing is common enough, but he should at least have gone to the $300 shop for help.... or blamed them for messing it up too and gone to yet another.

[protege]

He didn't say anything about how it was my fault. I picked up that from my mother.

[patiokitty]

I've dealt with the same crap from my family concerning computers. It's not my fault that they decided to listen to my idiot brother who is about as clueless as they are, despite the fact that I used to do tech support for a living. He fried more than a couple of their computers by 'fixing' them but I was usually the one that got the blame for them getting messed up despite having not touched them since long before they died.

After the last time my dear brother screwed up their computers I told my parents not to bother calling me to help them fix what he'd done. If they aren't going to listen to me in the first place then I can't be bothered. I've done the same thing with friends of mine who don't bother listening to me when I tell them not to do something or other. The last thing I've heard is that even the guy my dad was paying for tech support finally fired my family as customers. If they want to spend money on a new computer every time they fuck something up, well, it's not my money they're blowing.

I don't know if you can do what I did, protege, and simply fire your father as a 'customer' but that might be the thing to do. Next time he has problems and calls you for help simply tell him no. Make up an excuse if you have to, but at least he won't be able to blame you if something unrelated screws up.

[Tanasi]

I had a somewhat similar problem with my dad except it was with the remote control on his TV. He kept messing around and messing around with it until he could only get a few channels. If there was something he wanted to watch that he had blocked he'd take over Mom's TV and run her out of the room. Every month like clockwork I'd get a call from my Mom come and fix your father's TV he's driving me crazy. It didn't matter that I was at work, or maybe sick, or once out of the country deployed with the Army, I was expected to drop what I was doing and come-a-runnin. I'd spend hours fixing it and the whole time "Are you done yet, when you gonna be done , there's something I want to watch, did you see the Wheel of Fortune today." Finally I got some peace when I replace his remote with one that had on/off, volume up/down and channel up/down and hid the other remote. He complained but I told him that he wasn't responsible enough to use the more advanced remote. Now did this, my brother that has a Master's degree in Electric and Electronic engineering lived next door, they wouldn't call him as they didn't want to bother him but I who lived 50 miles away was expected to step and fetch-it. I told Mom the next time this happened I was gonna tie them both up and burn the house down around them. That's been 14+ years ago.

Prot chalk up your good deed to "No good deed goes unpunished." Family are the worst for this and I now refuse to work on anyone's computer outside my immediate family and that's mostly because if they complain I have butt whooping privileges. My wife is forever messing her computers up and calls me up with some vague problem description and wants me to fix it. "It don't work!!!", well what exactly is wrong??? "I don't know just fix it." well bring it to me and I'll look at it, "I don't have time for that, come here!!!" I installed TeamViewer on her and my kids computers, so when they have problems I can take control and get the fixing underway.

[protege]

Prot chalk up your good deed to "No good deed goes unpunished."

...and that was why I told him he would have to fix his network card issues himself. I know exactly what's wrong with it--the guy who fixed his computer for $300 didn't bother to make sure that the drives were updated. All he did was reinstall Windows, Office, and move some files over. He didn't do any Micro$haft updates or anything involving spyware/virus programs.

As of now, I'm done fixing his computer. If he wants me to take care of it, he's going to pay me...and I'm not cheap. As of now, the only family members that get a free pass, are my mother and grandmother. Why? They feed me, and don't bust my balls if things go south

[MrsEclipse]

Relevant Cracked.com column.

My dad is the computer fix guy where he works. Not that he's a tech, he's actually the COO, just that he's the only one that understands the strange ways of the "com-pyoo-tor." He's also the senior tech of this household. But when my computer has a problem, he shows me what he does so I learn how to fix it myself next time. I know he wishes he could do that at work but they just do not learn.

[Greenday]

My mom is the master of breaking laptops. She broke two laptops this year so far.

One she kept putting heavy stuff on top of it until it broke (my sister's laptop). Then my stepdad got one from a friend and my mom dropped it and the port for the AC adaprtor broke off (she denies it was her but I saw her do it). We got it fixed but she dropped it a few more times and it was permanently busted. Every time something goes wrong, she wont stop bothering me until I fix it. She refuses to watch and learn

[Andara Bledin]

My ex's father was one of those people who would go to my ex for advice, get advice, then ignore that advice and go to a "pro" and pay top dollar to have the pro do whatever (usually not fixing the problem) and then bitch about it not being fixed. If you didn't have a piece of paper or a job title saying you could do X job, he wouldn't believe you could do X job, even if he watched you do just that.

Thankfully, he never blamed anyone but the people who did the actual work for things not being fixed.

[Nekojin]

Andara's brother routinely fucks up the laptop that DeVry gave him, and he passively-aggressively suggests that I could fix it. I just ignore the suggestions, because it's not my responsibility - he's taken so little care in learning about computers, that he can't help but fuck it up. But when viruses get on his system "mysteriously," it couldn't possibly be because he's been visiting questionable sites, oh no. He doesn't do that.

After the last time he bitched about the computer being broken, and my lack of jumping to fix it, I haven't heard from him on that front again...

[Skunkle]

I and a much more PC-savvy friend (I know my basics, but I can't do repairs) used to tear out our figurative hair over a friend who had a faulty wire somewhere in his short-term memory, meaning he'd forget a lot of things at random. He's still a friend of ours, but he's wised up since then.

Anyway, ever hear those tales of guys who try to make room on their PC by-- yup. He would, fairly regularly, get rid of all those unnecessary files - he had no idea what they were for - in the Windows folders. Just drag to the Trash and delete. Huh, my computer won't work now. He used to have huge fits over that. We needed to warn him, educate him-- except that we DID. He just forgot. Again.

One time, though, we did have a chuckle. He got some sort of free internet service (remember, '99, 2000, AOL and other major services charged) which was completely free due to having a huge ad in 1/3 of the screen. Somehow, he managed to kill the ad window after much tinkering, and the service died. He spent weeks trying to get it fixed... Finally came to my friend and explained the story, so my friend did some digging. Turns out, the day after he killed the AD and the program quit responding... the service itself went out-of-business and shut down!

Greenday, that's pretty harsh. Ouch. DROPPING laptops - repeatedly? Stacking heavy stuff on top? Ow.

[Duelist925]

I'm not even that tech tsavvy (I know enough to trouble shoot my own issues...which usually means googling them is dinking around on the comp trying to figure it out myself doesnt fix it) and I know your pain. Especially yours, Tanasi.

Usd to work satelite DTV tech support, and got free tv as a benefit.

For the whole family.

So, so much fun it was the first time a storm knocked it out, and I got bitched at.

[HYHYBT]

This doesn't quite fit here, and yet it sort of does. Basically, I hate not being believed when there's nothing unbelievable in what I'm saying.

Dad's internet quit working a couple weeks ago. I did the usual unplugging of the DSL modem and so forth, but couldn't try the settings because I didn't know the address to access them. Then it turned out that for some reason, when they'd originally installed the service, they'd left him a spare modem. It was there in the box, same model as the one that was acting up. So I tried it. Didn't work either, but gave a very different error message: I don't remember precisely what either was now, but the first one was something along the lines of the computer not being assigned an address, while the second was about not being able to reach a DNS server.

Now, I don't really and fully know what I'm doing, but that sounded very much like the problem with the first one was between the modem and the computer (which, with the other experimenting, would mean a problem within the modem itself) while the second was a problem communicating with the outside, perhaps even one which could be fixed in the settings if I could just get at them and if I knew what they were supposed to be. At least, I thought, it surely would be worth a try if they couldn't get the first one working over the phone.

I called the company, and early in the call let them know I did have a spare if that was any help. After the usual couple tries each of my restarting the (original) device and their restarting the connection, he did indeed give me the address. The page wouldn't come up; gave some appropriate error. He wouldn't believe I'd typed it in right, and went into detail about how to find the address bar and so forth. Kept on with that a while, repeatedly typing in the same thing and getting the same error. I asked if it would maybe help to try the other modem. He said no, that's not the problem. Kept on at the address thing a few times more, put me on hold, called someone else, came back and said they'd have to send someone out. I asked again if we could please try the other modem first, and he flat refused.

One guess what they did when they got here, though they brought a new one with them instead of using the spare that was here already.

Oh, somewhere in there he also asked for the thing's serial number. It has at least five different long numbers on the bottom, most of which are unlabeled, and none of which say "serial" or "s/n" or anything like that. He wouldn't believe that, either.

[Andara Bledin]

He wouldn't believe I'd typed it in right, and went into detail about how to find the address bar and so forth. Kept on with that a while, repeatedly typing in the same thing and getting the same error.

This is the point where you escalate. It's obvious that the tier 1 guy is an idiot and he's being obstructionist. Make sure you have his name (always get and write down the name of anybody you end up dealing with) and get someone up tier.

You get the name so that when you get a real douchebag who drops your call instead of passing you up the chain (Earthlink was terrible about that when we had them), you can then work through the issue (hopefully) with a new tech, then ask for a supervisor (making a point to mention that the person you were talking to didn't do anything wrong), and then complain about the treatment by the guy who didn't help and then dumped you.

Annnnnd.... That brings me to my own story of people who don't know tech getting all pissy when your answer doesn't match their assumption.

The other day my brother started bitching about an app that he didn't install on his phone and couldn't find to uninstall. After about ten seconds I told him it was related to his browser and wasn't an app. He argued with me over it and kept ranting.

Someone else looked at it for a while, and was unable to find an app to remove. I finally took the thing, found the link on the screen and determined that it was a shortcut.

And then he couldn't figure out why I was irritated over his pissy dismissal of my original statement after I then proved that I was right all along.

[Tanasi]

Buying electronic devices for others is like buying other pets, don't do it unless you're willing to spend the life of the gift supporting it. My wife bought her mother a netbook for Christmas. MIL also got a iPad the same Christmas. MIL elected to keep the iPad and give the laptop to her younger brother aka Uncle Bob. Uncle Bob is my age and he's the cheapest, most selfish jerk known, I don't like him and never have. When it's his turn to host the "family" I and my family stay away as we do not want to risk food poisoning again. He'll "borrow" anything that isn't nailed down and I have a No-trespass files against him with both the city, county and state.
Anyways he gets this netbook and calls me up to get him on the "world wide web." I told him I didn't take him to raise and I wasn't going to get started with him on this so don't call back even if you're on fire and want me to piss on you. I really do not like this fellow. I then told the wife don't give e-gifts and expect me to support them because I won't.