(Untitled)

[ravenofdreams]

Nnngh.
Alright, everyone, I have to ask. What is your favourite / the best way of telling family members and friends that you will not fix their computer/television/VCR/iWhatever for free?

I ask because it seems like lately they've been coming out of the woodwork. Great-Aunt Somebody, Friend-I-Haven't-Spoken-To-In-Years, all of them, wanting me to

Comments

[jecook]

About the only person whom I can't readily deny is Mother, and she only pesters me when it's something that really is above her skill level. The rest of my family has other people they talk to more often to pester. :)

[biggeek]

For years I have been giving my Mom hand-me-down computer equipment running Windows XP (and suitably locked down and mom-proofed) because I'm a cheap bastard. Only a few problems cropped up.

Then last year, I bought her a 24" iMac. Apart from fiddling with the settings in Firefox to adjust for her bad vision, it's mom-proofed right out of the box.

[jecook]

I did something similar- I bought mom a 21" last year, largely because her 11+ year old iMac was too old and decrepit for the interwebbernets.

The last time I was over there was largely a matter of telling her what the spreadsheet app was now called, and that yes, you CAN select text when you forward stuff.

[talonvaki]

Don't answer your phone?

[the_s_guy]

Especially not at 6am.

[gotica]

Hard to not answer it if you're supposed to be on call :P (not saying that OP was on call, just a scenario)

Plus it could have been important, why else would someone be so inconsiderate to call at that time?

[the_s_guy]

This is why it's important to have a separate work phone from personal phone. :)

And to be brutally honest, I can't think of anything that I would need to answer the phone for at 6am, unless it was "Bushfire headed your way."

I figure, if it's important enough to call during nap time, it's important enough to call more than once.

[anonymissity]

I just tell them that I'm really busy right now and I'll TRY to get to it "when I can".

And then just don't.

They get the hint eventually.

[lihan161051]

Anything you're really busy with that early in the morning is either going to be TMI, or is going to trigger lots and lots of prying questions from relatives with way too much time on their hands ..

[prushrush]

It depends on what family member or friend it is.

[vulpine137]

I get away with 'Is it running Linux? Y/n' If N, tell them to contact $FRIEND who does this sort of thing for a living, and has reasonable rates.

If it's Y, then either, they're friends of mine who know as much, if not more about Linux than me, so why are they calling. Or, they're the friend I built the Linux fileserver as a Cthulhumas present, and it comes with tech support. That reminds me, I need to get that spare 1tb usb drive from her to do backups to, just so the drive doesn't crater.