Thats right, you heard me, I refuse to be
conned,
cajoled,
bullied or otherwise into
fixing your computer. Most likely the problem is one which could be fixed if you just read the
damn instructions or even just thought about it for two seconds before yelling out 'BRETT!!' at
my closed bedroom door.
Example of case: We've recently had
Optus@Home broadband internet installed at home. Dad wanted to go on it while sitting in the loungeroom, so he takes my sisters laptop from her bedroom, including the
RJ-45 cable which he had to disconnect from the socket in the wall. He sits in the
loungeroom, having plugged the power back in, but not the RJ-45 cable.
When he then gets '
Cannot Connect to Server' errors, he wonders why. Instead of taking one or two mental steps back from the situation and seeing if the damn laptop is plugged into the wall (and then into my
Slackware proxy/
firewall/
server etc), he comes and says
sheepishly to me 'Um, I can't get on the internet'.
Jebus!!, he was the one who helped me install the damn wall sockets in the first place. He's normally a smart guy, but
sometimes I wonder.
One time that I didn't mind that I was
beleaguered for geek help was when I was walking through the corridors at my High School. A teacher that I don't think I'd ever spoken a word to comes up to me (while I'm walking to the computer rooms, no doubt), and then proceeds to ask me a fairly complex question regarding their computer. I know that I have (had? - I'm in Uni now...), a bit of a reputation amongst the IT teachers (and I use the term 'teachers' loosely) at my highschool, for being the one to ask when there's a problem, but this was new.
It's maybe a little odd, but at the time I didn't see anything odd about this, (probably because I was still
half asleep from my
International Studies class I had just finished). I don't think I even raised an eyebrow at the question - I proceeded to
answer the question, while
munching on my
sandwich, and continuing on walking.
I have lost count the number of times I have been annoyed by other students during IT classes at highschool. I thought it would have ended when I made it to Uni, but it's only gotten worse. It's always the pretty girls too, they know perfectly well, that if they do
a little flirting I'm certain to help them. Well, that might have worked in High School, but its sure not gonna work anymore.
I don't think I'm alone in the
geek community when I shout the words
No I will not fix your computer.
I think I'm gonna go order that
T-Shirt from
ThinkGeek now.