Casual Conversation

My father in law was a proctologist - and also a man I didn't really enjoy spending any time with. One day during one of those strained compulsory family dinners - not sure which, maybe Thanksgiving - he turned to me and said with this false jovial air:

"Hey, you're a computer guy. I have this problem with my Windows laptop. Could you take a look?" and proceeded to unpack his laptop, which he had brought along, clearly to have me fix it.

So I got up, started undoing my fly and said "Sure! Hey, I have piles. Could you take a look?"

He got up and left without a word, and never came back. His wife kept visiting though, thankfully. She was lovely. But I got rid of him for good that day. But I did have to face the music with my wife 🙂

My dad taught me all about motorcycles, cars, lawnmowers, model airplanes, tools, general home repairs, and really an incalculable number of other things. I don’t mind giving him a hand with his PC or iPad once in a while.

It's not just tech shit. Basically, you should never let anyone know that you're good at something. Ever. Because then you become the fixit person for that thing.

I've been using Linux as an out. "Oh you're having a windows problem? I got rid of windows 10 years ago, so I can't really help you with that".

There's a lot of cringey responses in this thread. Just be a nice person and talk to your family and friends in an open and honest way.

Firstly, this happens in any profession. I'm a tax consultant. People always want to talk to me about tax.

Thing is, 100% of the time people will understand if you say "I don't really know very much about that particular thing I'm sorry."

When someone says "my wifi isn't working" they're not necessarily saying "please will you come over and fix my wifi", often they're really saying "what should I do to solve this problem" and the answer is usually "turn it off and on again, update adobe reader, if it's still not working take it to whatever shop."

If someone directly asks you "please will you stop what you're doing and come fix my x", which never actually happens, then you just deal with it as appropriate. "Sorry nan I have a lot going on right now, you'll have to take it to the shop".

Sounds like you are too blunt. Never tell them no. Listen to their problem and just reply with a 'Id have to look into that', or an 'I can come over when I get a chance'. If they persist, have a couple projects they can help you out with and tell them 'sorry Id love to help, but Im (going to the dump / painting the kitchen / gotta do seasonal yard work / etc). If they offer to help you, then you are kinda on the hook to help them. If they dont follow through... you can subtly bring it up (still gotta move that couch). You dont have to be a dick about it. It can be fun messing with folks.

Honestly I'm tech support for some people, but I need help with some of the more advanced stuff, so I have a tech guy too.

Physical therapy - i tell everyone to put ice in it and take Aleve for 3 days if it doesn't interfere with your meds.

I have a friend that's a doc. We're not supposed to tell people because they will to spend all night talking to her about their medical problems.

It's the same with plumbers, accountants, garage door repairers, mechanics, nurses, ... everyone.

We all think, "why does everyone want my help for free?" but we've all asked someone with a skill for advice.

I like to use the good-fast-cheap paradigm for most people. Typically, if I’m giving you something good & cheap/free, then it won’t be done today. If you want something good & fast, can’t be cheap. I can do fast & cheap, but I typically set expectations of like “Uhhh, I can try for 5 mins but [more important thing I need to do.]”

I agree that being the tech expert isn’t great, but it’s usually simple tasks. Most people have something where they are “the specialty person.” You’re tech, but maybe another friend is crafty, another one is good at fixing stuff, another is artistic. We all have different strengths and weaknesses.

I try to imagine good actions/karma as being passed forward; hopefully when I need help, someone looks out for me.

I came out the otherside by becoming a solutions architect. Now when people ask for my help I say things like "I know how to do that at enterprise scale. Here's the $10k/month cloud solution."

People don't ask as much anymore.

I help out people where I can. Some are great, and grateful. Some break things much worse, or insist that the computer spontaneously deleted their data. You do need to set boundaries, and be candid about your own: "You call yourself a computer guy?" "No, I call myself an embedded software developer, I haven't touched a Windows box in ten years, other than yours".

Do realize that a lot of people are genuinely victims of their own tech, these days. There are people who'd probably rather not use a computer, but have no choice.

Sure it’s annoying but I don’t mind helping grandma with her Word doc after she cooked dinner for everyone

You can go the nuclear option. My mother used to complain constantly that her computer was slow, and could I take a look at it. This developed into a fortnightly ritual where I would remove the Internet Explorer toolbars she'd added that took up a full third of her laptop's screen, then run an antivirus scan for 5 hours or so to remove the malware she kept re-installing. Eventually, I got tired of it and told her I would either install something she couldn't mess up as easily, or she could fix her own problems going forward. She agreed to trying something new, and her laptop got a nice Linux Mint install. I guess she really loved her malware, as she soon lost interest in the laptop, despite offers to show her how to do what she wanted to, which really weren't more elaborate than opening Firefox and going to her email, facebook, etc, but I guess a new desktop icon and no toolbars was a bridge too far for her.

Oh yeah. Especially when you have a degree in CS, spend your days writing code and thinking about design patterns, and people ask you for advice on what laptop to get. I don't @#&$ know!

I’d say it’s a pretty general phenomenon. Expertise and entitled consumption of it as a service. Even in a professional setting, with a service/support dynamic, it can be abused through entitlement pretty often.

I'm quite surprised by the fact that so many people here seem to be bothered by that. To me, having friends and family also means helping each other when we can. I am good with tech, but I am awful with many other things, and I am really glad that I do know that my family and friends will also help me.

Ya and fuck printers. Happy Solstice.

"Why do you always help so-and-so and never return my calls?"

So and so knows to bring the fucking cookies when they fuck their shit up, sherlock.

No one wants to ask a business analyst questions, because I just tell them what they are doing wrong and how to fix it

I'm a professional photographer which is sort of tech adjacent to people that don't know much about tech so I get this too which is funny because my brothers career is based around helping people with their tech problems and they think I know just as much as he does because we both "work with computers"

It stopped when I started asking for 50€ per hour. It was 20 years ago.

My family have always been cool about it and willing to work around my schedule when they needed something. Usually they return the favor with some cash or baked goods even though I've never asked for payment.

"Oh, I wish I could help, but I don't know anything about that. That's not my area of expertise."

Get good at variations of that theme or you will be miserable. That or start a side business where you charge for your services.

Any occupation with significant technical skill gets this treatment, as do any occupations with any significant creative component.

So yes, if you're in tech you get people begging you to work for free among your circle of family and friends. Same if you're a doctor. A lawyer. An artist. A musician. Etc. etc. etc.

Smart people making use of such talents will pay, not necessarily in money but in other forms of currency ranging from "a six-pack" through trades of labour ("let me do your dishes while you look at my laptop") through sometimes less tangible things like introducing you to their own circle of friends and such giving you an opportunity to broaden your network.

Dumb people demand aid and then get offended if you say "no".

I was always really fortunate in that my family didn’t bother me too much with tech support requests - mostly because I didn’t really get into a technical career when I lived near them.

However, I did have the misfortune of becoming ‘the photographer.’ I always really loved photography, and when I could, I bought one of the first model DSLR’s. I shot mostly for myself. I’d sometimes do paid work, but generally, I just liked wandering around and getting pictures of things I thought were interesting. For about a 5-10 year period, I was just expected to be the photographer for every life event for everyone in my immediate family, and I found it really dehumanizing.
I was not Monument the friend, the brother, the son, the uncle, or whatever, but ‘the camera.’ I could not enjoy the experience of being at events, or even of taking pictures for myself unless I ‘forgot’ my camera at home, or flat out refused to take pictures for other people. I’ve had strangers interrupt me while shooting to take their picture - both with their camera (tourists, mostly) or with my own camera.
When my camera fell behind in technology, I more or less shelved it in favor of crappy cell phone pictures for documenting things, but I still sort of have bittersweet feelings about using a DSLR to make art. I feel like the expectation sort of ruined the joy of shooting for me.

I was an electrician for 14 years and now im a software developer. I get so many people asking me to do small things around their house for electrical and while im there they ask, "he can you look at my phone/computer, its not running like it used to". I will look at it and see if its an easy fix but sometimes i need to say no i dont do that

Moving to another country helped to remedy this. I highly recommend it. It still won't stop your hopeless mother-in-law from constantly dropping hints that she's having technical problems on PC or Android whenever you're around, just to find out 100% of the time that it's always something beyond your ability to help (ie: the Girl Guides website is absolute cancer, her printer software appears to be the womb from which all malware is produced, or she requires administrative support on six different levels after somehow locking herself out of her account, her business email on outlook, her personal email, her recovery email, and some weird matrix of temporary guiding logins/passwords that she swears were properly written down (or are an old printed email containing a long, convoluted link that has long since expired), and you're honestly just impressed that a person could get themselves this deep in a hole).

Yeah, my parents don't seem to understand that this is actually work. To them, I'm just sitting there, having a bit of a chat with them. I now work in the field and they have become somewhat more sympathetic after I told them that this is basically another workday for me, when they call me to come on a Saturday or Sunday. Like, yeah, I will get around to it, but I am often exhausted from work, which does make it a pretty big ask for me to continue working on the weekend.