T13 #9: Reasons why I hate it to be asked to fix other people’s computers
Here’s the thing: in my family and among most of my friends I have the reputation to be the absolute computer expert. So, if anybody has any computer problems, they usually come to me for help. And here is why I hate that:
1. Contrary to common belief I actually do not know a lot about computers (or about technical things in general). When I have a problem with my own one, I just try to solve it on my own and usually succeed sooner or later, mainly just out of plain stubbornness. I just don’t let any machine tell me what I can or can’t do with it. Yes, I do take it personally when the bloody thing refuses to do what I tell him to.
2. People always expect me to have a pat answer for their problems – even if they’re not even able to accurately describe the problem itself. Somehow “it just doesn’t work anymore” or the ever-popular “I didn’t do anything” doesn’t really help me understand it.
3. When people come to me for help it is usually only after they have fiddled around themselves, randomly deleting things, changing stettings etc. – just generating a big mess and making the problem much much worse than it was in the first place.
Then when I come in and can’t find the cause (and the solution) right away, they get miffed and say things like “what kind of computer expert are you?” as if I myself had ever claimed to be an expert in anything.
4. If it’s a smallish problem the solution is usually that glaringly obvious that I just can’t understand how anybody could not have stumbled upon it themselves.
5. The explanation for that, of course, is that most people don’t even try it (at least not in a way that involves logical thinking), but just generally prefer somebody else to clean up their messes.
6. Some people are actually stupid enough to make the same mistakes over and over again, and at the same time can’t be bothered to keep in mind how I solved them for them the last time (or how I told them to avoid them in the first place). So they have to call me in again and again.
7. If they messed up their system beyond repair (or, at least, beyond my humble abilities for repairing software-related things) and I have to resort to format the harddisk and set up the system anew, they never have all the necessary installation-CDs around, because they usually just throw the important ones away.
8. Or, they do have the CDs, but threw away the serial numbers. Or the passwords and konfiguration data to set up the internet connection. Or something else equally important and time-consuming to get replaced.
9. Nobody seems to backup their data nowadays, so I end up having to do that myself before I format the disk. But what is even more mind-boggling is that most people can’t even remember where they usually store their data – so I have to hunt through the whole disk to find the damned stuff (how they ever manage to find it again themselves remains a complete mystery to me). And, of course, usually I miss some things. Of course, that is only noticed after I formatted the bloody thing.
10. One no 2 computers does the new installation of an operation system work in the same way. I don’t know why that is, but everything that works fine on my own machine just produces error messages on any other one. And vice versa. Making it necessary for me to invent a whole new approach to everything for every damn system I want to install, especially if it’s a different version of Windows than I use myself.
11. I have not a lot of money, so I tend to use my computers for years and tend not to change much on them once the system is arranged to my taste and needs. That way I know my way around my own system pretty well. For instance I just changed over to Windows XP last year. But once I do change something, I make sure I know how to operate it.
Most other people either buy a new computer more or less every few months – and then are not able to properly handle it – or hang on to a totally obsolete system for even longer than I do – making it more or less impossible to find drivers or the like when I need them.
For me, both these things constitute a problem, because I really don’t remember anymore, how to work with Windows 95, and on the other hand, I just don’t know my way around Windows Vista, or – heaven forbid – something like a Mac or a Linux system in the first place, because I have never actually worked with one (well, I did work with a Mac once, it just drovem me nuts, because it crashed even more often than my Windows).
12. The fact that I get a whole new array of wonderfully non-descriptive error messages that I have never seen before on every new computer makes sure that every time it takes me at least twice as long as it should (most times a lot longer) to get everything up and running again. And I actually do not especially enjoy spending hours discussing things with a stubborn machine that should be done in 20 minutes.
13. I know it’s not logical, but my impression of computers in general is that there are indeed ghosts in the machine. In my eyes, every computer I ever worked with was possessed by some kind of a machine-version of a spirit. And in most computers these spirit are malicious. (I know that I probably have watched “I, Robot” and “Terminator” way too often, but there you are. I even think that my car is somehow alive.)
I have worked out some kind of agreement with the one in my own computer, so that that one now behaves like a paranoid shizophreniac on well-adjusted medication. Meaning it’s quite agreeable on most days and only acts up now and then, and even then I can usually make the problems go away by just leaving it in peace for a while. I know that any techie is just rolling his eyes now, but it’s surprising who well that approach works. For me at least.
Other computers act towards me more or less like their spirits never even heard that there actually is something like medication…
Ok, and now I have to get back to fixing my aunt’s computer that stubbornly refuses to let me install pretty much anything on it. So this is gonna be a looooooong afternoon. (Which is why I won’t have much time to go around visiting other TT’ers today. Hoepfully tomorrow, though.)
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