Do you ever feel like cheap tech support for loved ones?

[The Fake Shemp]

I swear, between my brother and the girlfriend.  It reminds me of this time in Target, when this customer bought something and wanted to pay us to help her, because I guess we look like tech savvy white folks (read: geeks!) and in an effort to play dumb, Disposable White Guy shrugged his shoulders and screeched out, "COMPUTARS?!?"

[MrAngryFace]

Testing.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I don't know what that means.

[close]

[The Fake Shemp]

 

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Actually, I don't mind helping CrystalGemini, but my brother called me with the dumbest PC problem right afterwards.

[close]

[Bacon]

Sometimes I just feel cheap.

[bagofeyes]

I just say I use macs and don't know anything about dumb windows machines

[DJ_Tet]

I am cheap tech support for my family.  Every time I visit family members, I travel with software and help rebuild their crippled, spyware addled PCs.

[The Fake Shemp]

This just happened:

<Me> Okay, so what's the problem?
<Brother> So I, uh, put this CD in the CD thingie and then tipped over the PC to plug in my headph-
<Me> Wait, while it was still on and the CD was in the tray?
<Brother> Yeah.
<Me> Okay...
<Brother> Yeah, so now the CD thingie isn't working.

[morphix]

all the time, I get called on all the time and I don't even keep up with the crap anymore.

[cubicle47b]

I just shrug and say, "I have no idea what you did.  Just because I'm a programmer doesn't mean I know the myriad of ways you fucked up your Windows installation."

[The Fake Shemp]

If my family has problems with the computer "being slow" or "acting weird", it is almost always spyware.

[cubicle47b]

Pretty much.  And I put the holy trinity of free shit on to protect them (AVG, Spybot, Adaware) but that's not enough somehow.

[Mupepe]

My mom doesn't fool with computers and the one she has she is able to keep clean from spyware.  I'm more of tech support for my significant other at the time.  Gets annoying as fuck.

[Van Cruncheon]

[Thee Reverend Gary Davis]

If my family has problems with the computer "being slow" or "acting weird", it is almost always spyware.

my parents, on the other hand, think when the computer takes a few minutes to load a page it's because of 'viruses'