[BergerKing]

Thanks to all of you guys for the heads up on the length of my rant - really sorry. Have now tried to fix it.

Glad you understood I wasn't trying to take away from your thread or story, I enjoyed it and wanted as many as possible to read and comment. It's
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[castoridae]

Glad you understood I wasn't trying to take away from your thread or story, I enjoyed it and wanted as many as possible to read and comment. It's
Sent from my SPH-L710 using CB Forums mobile app

BTW: the a-hole deleted my crackberry icon!!! I personally think he should die for this alone.

[BergerKing]

BTW: the a-hole deleted my crackberry icon!!! I personally think he should die for this alone.

Get a rope!

Sent from my SPH-L710 using CB Forums mobile app

[dphjeff]

Castoridae why don't you take picture of the web page and then email it to your printer?

[castoridae]

Castoridae why don't you take picture of the web page and then email it to your printer?

Not entirely sure what you mean, but I will revisit the printer issue when my brain heals from this latest tech trip. I will do a separate post on the HP and include your advice - thx!

[axllebeer]

The pay stinks? You didn't just give up a few hundred dollars, I'd say the pay was pretty darned good, actually.

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Good point. I might have to reevaluate that statement.

[axllebeer]

BTW: the a-hole deleted my crackberry icon!!! I personally think he should die for this alone.

Death to the opposition!

[Mickrick]

Ok, my 2 cents. I haven't read any other replies before saying this so if I'm repeating what others have said, my apologies.

I work in the IT sector. I do the same sort of work as this "older" guy does (plus a lot more besides). The main reason people ask us to do this sort of work is that they don't know how to do it themselves. Cleaning up, disinfecting and restoring (where possible) a computer to its original glory is not a simple task. In the vast majority of cases I have come across, there is a whole lot more wrong with a computer than the customer either lets on, is aware of or can describe. I have spent days cleaning up a computer. And you say your system was 95% full when it should've been only, what, 25%? So that's 70% of rubbish on your pc that this guy had to wade through to restore it.

Uninstalling and reinstalling software which the customer cannot find the original license key for is also a major problem. A lot of the time we have to use specialist software to retrive these keys from the registry. And when you've been called out to a stranger's home to do this, it is a highly pressurised atmosphere to work in.

The "technobabble" you refer to is actually real words which describe the problems. Sometimes it is very difficult, if not damn near impossible, to put these words into plain-speak for someone to understand.

We don't know how to install every piece of hardware or consumable on the planet, so we use every available tool at our disposal, including the internet, to find out. Very often installing hardware we hit a problem, usually caused by the drivers supplied being out of date or conflicting with other software or hardware on the system. The only way around this is to trawl the internet for newer (or older in some cases) drivers and software to overcome these problems. Very often they don't, so we spend more time trawling round web forums looking for the same issues and solutions to them. And when all else fails, we sort it out through trial and error taking, you guessed it, more time. And sometimes we just can't sort the problem out. Outdated hardware, faulty hardware or hardware sitting for a long time gathering dust is a pain in the backside that we can do without. And sometimes we recommend a better option if it is sitting around. You've said you knew the routine for installing the ink cartridges. So why didn't you do it yourself?

Personally, from the information you've given, I think you're being very hard on the "older" guy. You sound like you were already pretty het up before he arrived and the fact that he was "older" only made it worse. Here's a heads up - "older" usually means "more experienced". If it had been a younger guy, he may not have known as much as this "older" guy and he may have been there a lot longer resulting in higher costs for you. And you could've at least told the company you had an engagement that night and arranged the callout for a different day.

I apologise if I sound like I have no sympathy for you or your situation. That would probably be because I don't.

[Cynycl]

I'm guessing the six hours the nerd wasted would have been 60 had he done it himself

[daglesj]

An hour to virus scan a PC and service it! Hilarious!

Takes around 90 minutes to scan the average HDD fully (HDD removed and full scanned on another machine) and then you get to fully defrag the drive afterwards (which is usually 80% full at 25% fragmentation). Then not to mention all those updates and all the quirks you have to iron out that its built up over the past 5 years or so.

I do PC and laptop servicing and it take me around 5-6 hours to do a machine from start to finish. I have to charge a set fee for it as folks would just want to buy a new laptop if I charged by the hour. I also insist they deliver the machine to me or I collect it and return (for an extra fee of course).

Properly servicing a PC or laptop is not a quick job. If somone says that have done it top to bottom in an hour they are lying.

[castoridae]

Ok, my 2 cents. I haven't read any other replies before saying this so if I'm repeating what others have said, my apologies.

I work in the IT sector. I do the same sort of work as this "older" guy does (plus a lot more besides). The main reason people ask us to do this sort of work is that they don't know how to do it themselves. Cleaning up, disinfecting and restoring (where possible) a computer to its original glory is not a simple task. In the vast majority of cases I have come across, there is a whole lot more wrong with a computer than the customer either lets on, is aware of or can describe. I have spent days cleaning up a computer. And you say your system was 95% full when it should've been only, what, 25%? So that's 70% of rubbish on your pc that this guy had to wade through to restore it.

Uninstalling and reinstalling software which the customer cannot find the original license key for is also a major problem. A lot of the time we have to use specialist software to retrive these keys from the registry. And when you've been called out to a stranger's home to do this, it is a highly pressurised atmosphere to work in.

The "technobabble" you refer to is actually real words which describe the problems. Sometimes it is very difficult, if not damn near impossible, to put these words into plain-speak for someone to understand.

We don't know how to install every piece of hardware or consumable on the planet, so we use every available tool at our disposal, including the internet, to find out. Very often installing hardware we hit a problem, usually caused by the drivers supplied being out of date or conflicting with other software or hardware on the system. The only way around this is to trawl the internet for newer (or older in some cases) drivers and software to overcome these problems. Very often they don't, so we spend more time trawling round web forums looking for the same issues and solutions to them. And when all else fails, we sort it out through trial and error taking, you guessed it, more time. And sometimes we just can't sort the problem out. Outdated hardware, faulty hardware or hardware sitting for a long time gathering dust is a pain in the backside that we can do without. And sometimes we recommend a better option if it is sitting around. You've said you knew the routine for installing the ink cartridges. So why didn't you do it yourself?

Personally, from the information you've given, I think you're being very hard on the "older" guy. You sound like you were already pretty het up before he arrived and the fact that he was "older" only made it worse. Here's a heads up - "older" usually means "more experienced". If it had been a younger guy, he may not have known as much as this "older" guy and he may have been there a lot longer resulting in higher costs for you. And you could've at least told the company you had an engagement that night and arranged the callout for a different day.

I apologise if I sound like I have no sympathy for you or your situation. That would probably be because I don't.

Ok, first, if he had been honest and said this will take a long time it would have given me a chance to say go ahead or don't.

My comment about him being older was initially to his credit, ie, not some kid from Best Buy, and I honestly thought he would be experienced.

The technobabble was just rude and ridiculous, as pointed out by others here already. If you're working with the public, you dumb it down, not show off - all professional fields do this, including myself.

The printed instructions were clear - he just didn't bother to listen or read them first off, which is what you do when instructiions come in a package. If he had done that and expressed trepidation, that would be different.

There were no drivers or other programs for him to install or re-install; however, I placed both disks from both printers there for him, if necessary, which he did not use.

I get that people don't know every piece of hardware. Honesty up front in this case goes a long way, so the customer can decide whether to go ahead.

I've been fortunate up to now in that others i have used have done a good job for me, so I had no previous 'attitude'

I get the impression that you're the one wound up here; possibly from people who want everything fixed right away; here's a reality check - try giving people straight up information and you might get a better response than you're obviously getting from your customers.

[Angus_CB]

"I called to ask for a general PC clean up of junk and viruses - usually a hr or so, right?"

No, not right. As others have explained 6 hours for something like this is normal.
It's not uncommon for Windows updates alone to take an hour.
A good part of those 6 hours are sent waiting for software to do it's job which is an opportune time to figure out what is going on with your printer.

You don't really say but it sounds like you were quoted 1 hour at $50 then had to pay for 6 hours.
If that is the case I don't blame you for being upset.
The tech. should have given you a better estimate on time and cost. A flat rate for this is easier but it would never be a $50 job. 10 years ago I charged $120 to do this type of thing in my shop. $300 to come to your home is not unreasonable.

Personally I don't spend much time trying to get rid of viruses and adware. You never know if you've gotten all of it or not.
It's much more reliable to backup the data, get all software license codes and reinstall everything including the operating system.

Icons removed from your Desktop does not mean the programs were deleted, unless he actually did uninstall the programs.
Programs like DDPB are not common. When I see something that is common my first thought is adware/virus but I always ask the owner what it is or where it came from. 90% of the time they have no idea.

[castoridae]

"I called to ask for a general PC clean up of junk and viruses - usually a hr or so, right?"

No, not right. As others have explained 6 hours for something like this is normal.
It's not uncommon for Windows updates alone to take an hour.
A good part of those 6 hours are sent waiting for software to do it's job which is an opportune time to figure out what is going on with your printer.

You don't really say but it sounds like you were quoted 1 hour at $50 then had to pay for 6 hours.
If that is the case I don't blame you for being upset.
The tech. should have given you a better estimate on time and cost. A flat rate for this is easier but it would never be a $50 job. 10 years ago I charged $120 to do this type of thing in my shop. $300 to come to your home is not unreasonable.

Personally I don't spend much time trying to get rid of viruses and adware. You never know if you've gotten all of it or not.
It's much more reliable to backup the data, get all software license codes and reinstall everything including the operating system.

Icons removed from your Desktop does not mean the programs were deleted, unless he actually did uninstall the programs.
Programs like DDPB are not common. When I see something that is common my first thought is adware/virus but I always ask the owner what it is or where it came from. 90% of the time they have no idea.

I get this done once a year or so, and that is what I am basing the cleanup on, especially in terms of time. Tech has never taken more than 1 - 2max for cleanup. This guy never got past that cleanup and yes he deleted from 'add/remove programs, based on what was in my favourites, which is totally outdated, so kept old useless stuff all without telling me until afger the fact., Also did not tell me how much time this was going to take. With my previous experience, I had no reason to believe it would take any longer than previously; especially since he never even got to the printer untill I insisted he get moving on it. Oh, yeah, and ignoring my repeated requests to 'read the instructions' on the cartridges really finished it for me.
Interestingly, I received a how did we do survey, which I filled out - and when I tried to file it, I got a 'survey previously completed' notice. I'm wondering if this is a one man company.

[EchoesFX]

The "technobabble" you refer to is actually real words which describe the problems. Sometimes it is very difficult, if not damn near impossible, to put these words into plain-speak for someone to understand.

Most of the time the average customer is a complete *****. To them, the very concept of entering a Web address into an address bar instead of Google is enough to break their brain and suddenly all reading comprehension skills revert to preschool levels. Despite what you may think you hear, customers are not speaking English. They are actually speaking what I call "customer speak".

A few examples of customer speak to English:

"That isn't there!" = "I absolutely refuse to look at my screen and use my reading skills to find that, so I will now verbally abuse you for my stupidity."

"Nothing happened!" = "I didn't actually click on what you told me to, so I will begin verbally abusing you shortly."

"I did type it correctly!" = "I didn't type it correctly, but I refuse to actually check my caps lock key or read what I actually typed, because I would rather toss more insults your way while I refuse to follow directions some more."

"It worked before!" = "I refuse to accept that I screwed up my 8 year old machine with pirated software, pornography and gambling sites. I am going to verbally abuse you and demand a supervisor because you won't spend 3 hours on the phone with me when this isn't even something my ISP should be fixing for me."

"I hooked it up correctly" = "I placed a filter into my wall jack, a 50 foot phone cord, a coupler, another 50 foot cord, another filter, then plugged it into one side of a splitter, plugged an unfiltered phone into the other side and then plugged the splitter into my DSL modem. I refuse to actually make it look like it does in the picture because following directions makes me feel like less than a man. And doesn't let me verbally abuse you because my Internet is not working."

"I have no signal, your service sucks it's down and I can't watch TV!" = "I am an ***** that can't tell the difference between a message from my TV, and a message from my DVR. I have called in twice weekly about this, but I am too stupid to stop changing the input on my television set and forget about remembering how to change it back. God only knows how I landed a job that doesn't involve flipping burgers, But I am going to be verbally abusive because of my stupidity."



Posted via CB10

[castoridae]

[QUOTE=EchoesFX;8648842]Most of the time the average customer is a complete *****. To them, the very concept of entering a Web address into an address bar instead of Google is enough to break their brain and suddenly all reading comprehension skills revert to preschool levels. Despite what you may think you hear, customers are not speaking English. They are actually speaking what I call "customer speak".

I get the what you're saying, consider this, technospeak is not used by other professionals such as, lawyers, doctors, scientists and many many more - ditto for lawyer and doctor patient- speak - can you imagine if doctors couldn't be bothered trying to understand an upset patient, and/ or their family? If you dislike your customers so much, perhaps you should look into a different career. Many techs on this site picked up on my comnent about techno speak and were less impressed with it than I was. Showing off with bafflegab is as phony as this guy was.

[Cracklen]

"..placed both disks from both printers there for him.."
Majority of software on supplied manufacturers discs are out of date within weeks, so when doing a rebuild/upgrade recommended to chk/download from the manufacturers site. Some quite often from the various hardware manufacturers site . . . .


"..computer home visit nerd from hell.."
They exist in every trade or science There are also several auto mechanics, structural engineers, with similiar labelling

imho

p.s. this past jan. it took me 5-6 hrs to gut my tower and rebuild it with new mobo,cpu,hdd, ram and then 60+ hrs to install and tweak the soft' (xp --w764 plus extras) . . . . . and i just know enough to stay out fatal trouble

[BigAl_BB9900]

funny story.
same here too. i am also a tech guy + plus a nerd + a geek + a guy who talks non-stop with myself (since no one likes to listen all the technical stuff i ramble all the time).
"Cost me close to $300 for 6 hrs of hell and no dinner untill about 9:30. What an A-hole."
now i feel like an A-Hole because i have never charged people to fix their broken software and hardware. and alli got was a smile and a box full of chocolates and when they left my place they spoke all kinda sh!ts about me and not even 1 cent or paisa. forget 300 $.
now this post is funny and it depressed me completely. i do take pride and passion in my work which i do for others. i never get paid and also they talk sh!t behind me. oh i am such an A-Hole and a looser.
thanks
-paul

If it's ex-girlfriends you are doing emergency PC support for... in my experience the monetary side of things will be nil, but some of the benefits will be worth it! (I certainly won't settle for just a box of chocolates....)

And yes, I'm sure they whinge about me after I leave because they whinged enough when we were together.....

[castoridae]

If it's ex-girlfriends you are doing emergency PC support for... in my experience the monetary side of things will be nil, but some of the benefits will be worth it! (I certainly won't settle for just a box of chocolates....)

And yes, I'm sure they whinge about me after I leave because they whinged enough when we were together.....

Ok, I liked your post. I once had a tech boyfriend; I guess we all indulge in cross-species mating

[castoridae]

"..placed both disks from both printers there for him.."
Majority of software on supplied manufacturers discs are out of date within weeks, so when doing a rebuild/upgrade recommended to chk/download from the manufacturers site. Some quite often from the various hardware manufacturers site . . . .


"..computer home visit nerd from hell.."
They exist in every trade or science There are also several auto mechanics, structural engineers, with similiar labelling

imho

p.s. this past jan. it took me 5-6 hrs to gut my tower and rebuild it with new mobo,cpu,hdd, ram and then 60+ hrs to install and tweak the soft' (xp --w764 plus extras) . . . . . and i just know enough to stay out fatal trouble

Absolutely! Point was, printer was not going to do anything without the cartridge replacement. I had really just spent days trying to break the fu*#*ing seal on the cartridge, but do not have a sharp exacto knife, which was called for in the instructions. The disks were in case it still didn't work as a last ditch effort. This man was honestly not listening to me. I had watched the youtube vids about Lexmark printer cartridges, from other users, so I knew what was and was not possible in my case. I explained all of this right off and said follow the instructions, which were not complicated, believe me - he ignored all this and wasted time looking at the vids I just told him I already watched and never looked at the tiny piece of paper with drawings and printed instructions. That's what was making me mad. It was also late and I had planned to go out to dinner that evening - remember he arrived at 3 pm - and gave me no indication of how many hrs it would take. If he had, I would have re-booked or cancelked. Remember, I had others clean the PC in kess than 2 hrs on more than 1 occasion, so I had no reason to think this would be different.

[Angus_CB]

Absolutely! Point was, printer was not going to do anything without the cartridge replacement. I had really just spent days trying to break the fu*#*ing seal on the cartridge, but do not have a sharp exacto knife, which was called for in the instructions.
...

You can get an Exacto knife for a $1.

[Angus_CB]

... yes he deleted from 'add/remove programs, based on what was in my favourites, which is totally outdated, so kept old useless stuff all without telling me until afger the fact., ...

It's not outdated, it doesn't make sense.
What does your Favourites have to do with programs on your computer?

[castoridae]

It's not outdated, it doesn't make sense.
What does your Favourites have to do with programs on your computer?

Agree completely, so maybe you are beginning to see why I was t-offed.

[castoridae]

You can get an Exacto knife for a $1.

Yep, I just came back from weekly shopping - I now am the proud owner of an exacto knife from Walmart and now plan to attack that printer cartridge - I hope it works

[EchoesFX]

I get the what you're saying, consider this, technospeak is not used by other professionals such as, lawyers, doctors, scientists and many many more - ditto for lawyer and doctor patient- speak - can you imagine if doctors couldn't be bothered trying to understand an upset patient, and/ or their family? If you dislike your customers so much, perhaps you should look into a different career. Many techs on this site picked up on my comnent about techno speak and were less impressed with it than I was. Showing off with bafflegab is as phony as this guy was.

My, my... If someone takes their internet connection or TV as seriously as life threatening illnesses/injuries or potentially losing their freedom, they need to grow up. Fact. Either way your "tech" sounds like he was **** at his job. I'll give you that.

[Mickrick]

I get the what you're saying, consider this, technospeak is not used by other professionals such as, lawyers, doctors, scientists and many many more

Have you ever read the deeds for a house, drawn up by a lawyer? Or a contract of any kind drawn up by a lawyer? Or a script written by a doctor? (probably the single main reason word processors were invented). And as for scientists - bwahahahahahaha!