How not to help people?

So you just get home from another 16 hour day, your 6th in a row. You grab some food, sit on the couch to start to decompress in front the TV, when the phone rings.

Now you know there is about a 50% chance it’s a telemarketer, someone conducting a survey, or a religious nut. And a 10% chance it’s a friend just wanting to talk football or just to catch up. Then if my math is right, that leaves about 40% chance that it’s your best friend (or Mom, brother, neighbor, or that dude down the street that you’ve only really talked to that time the power went out and everyone went outside to comment on how dark it was) wanting computer help.

Oh they won’t usually come out and say it, they might talk a little football, even ask about the family or how things are going at work or mention how the last time they say you it looked like you lost a few pounds. The whole time you’re waiting for it, but you hope that this time they really are just wanting to talk to you.

Then it happens. They ask the inevitable question … “hey that reminds me. I know your burned out, but if you have a second my computer is …”. And there it is. Like a turd in a punch bowl. For what seems like the 10th time this year they called to get free support and couldn’t give a crap about you. All the small talk was just trying to distract you from the pending fecal matter.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love to help people out with this stuff. But after doing this every waking minute for what seems like a million years, it can get old. As much as I do like helping people, I’d like to figure out a way to say no occasionally without feeling like I’m being an a-hole.

So that’s my dilemma. Without lying, or sounding like a complete tool, how do I get people to stop asking for help all the time? I guess I could just do a really bad job helping them, so they never ask again, but they are friends or at least friendly after all.

I suppose in the spirit of Thanksgiving I should be thankful that they call in the first place. OK enough of that.

Tags: friends, help, support

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Comment by JT on November 27, 2008 at 4:38pm: My problem with the XP Home Edition is that users are either Administrators or Limited Users with no in between. In XP Professional you have Backup Operators, Power Users, Remote Desktop Users, and Users (there are a few others but I think you get what i mean). Giving a person (other than a child) a Limited Users ID is just frustrating. They basically cannot do much of anything. I prefer to be able to make a person, that is not the owner of the machine but they are familiar with the workings of a PC, a Power User.

Comment by Kaiya on November 27, 2008 at 4:32pm: HEY, I know what to do. The next time you go over just screw their computer up real badly lol I actually asked someone about that if people bugged him and thats what he said he did...for real, but maybe he was exaggerating. Still i bet that would work.

Comment by The Dude on November 27, 2008 at 4:26pm: I'm with you on logmein. Beyond free and Pro, I love and now swear by Logmein Rescue. Absolutely terrific instant support, now even to mobile phones of all things. Its pricey, but has really changed the way I work more than any other single product out there. So for me its now a combination of Rescue, free and IT Reach for servers.

I personally don't have anything against XP Home at a home. Its got no place in a business, but at home the only thing its really missing is the ability to join a domain, which most people don't have at home anyway. Other than that its basically the same thing.

Comment by JT on November 26, 2008 at 11:36pm: Also every machine that I touch, especially Friends & Family I usually, if they have XP Home (I hate XP Home), upgrade it to XP Pro (I have a Volume License) then I set the Admin PW to what I want it to be. I also install LogMeIn so I can get to it remotely. LogMeIn is free as long as you already have it installed on the remote machine, otherwise you have to purchase LogMeIn Pro to have them give you permission to get onto it.

Comment by The Dude on November 26, 2008 at 11:24pm: That is more or less what I do. The problem though is that this inevitably leads to people offering to pay me for my work, which leads to more awkward moments as I really don’t want to charge friends for “occasional” service. This definitely works well for those occasional acquaintances.

Comment by JT on November 26, 2008 at 5:45pm: Just say to them that this is what you do for a living, Professionally Speaking, and then give them your rates. Let's say $35.00 per hour.

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