I Love Utter Idiots....

[CuseMMA]

You should gather every cleanup tutorial written on this site and send it to her. I think she'll appreciate it.

[DjM]

Tiger, in a year where I can count the good days I have had on one hand, I must adimt you just made my day. As I read this post all I could think about is why is this woman bring a knife to a gun fight, she has know idea of what she is talking about and no idea of who she is dealing with. I encourge to keep up with the emails to her and post them here. Better yet, encourge her to sign up here so we can all take a run at her, why should you have all the fun!

I'm on days off, barkeep, another pint, I'm in a good mood.

Cheers:

[kr5kernel]

For real. You handled the situation well Tiger and even with a little class ;-)

As you know I am a fellow michigander, and partnering or being recogzied by the likes of Ford or GM is not all that stellar when over half of your state economy is in the balance of those 2 companies.

[Tiger Shark]

Well, it appears that my final missive was heeded.... I haven't heard from her.... Then again she could be trying to stir the proverbial with my boss but when my boss sees her emails I'm confident that she will side with me.....

Someone PMed me and asked why I even bothered to respond in the first place. Fair question that deserves an answer for those of you who are wondering.

I respect honesty and fairness. I detest lying by omission and deviousness and it is a character flaw of mine that I cannot not respond when I encounter it.

I am well aware of the MO of companies such as this. The whole story goes something like this:-

Joe Blow sees a great deal for a computer in the paper, "kewl", he thinks, "I can afford a computer now". He purchases his new box for $600, slides onto the internet and away he goes. A month later the computer is barely usable so he takes it to Ms. X's company. Ms. X charges him $120 to "fix" it, (remember, the damn thing only cost him $600), then holds him to ransom over another $100 or so by offering him "pay for" products that he doesn't need if he could find the perfectly good free stuff out there. Ms. X doesn't give a rats ass whether he takes the $100 worth of software or not, (she probably prefers he doesn't on the first call), because if he doesn't then she gets a repeat customer and if he does she makes $30-40 off the deal anyway. So, If Joe accepts he has now spent $260 on a computer that only cost $600, nearly half his investment. If he doesn't he will be back in a month and will have spent $420 on a box that cost him $600. Now he really can't afford the additional $100 so he decides that he simply has to live with it and never takes it to be cleaned again.

Now what do we have? We have another computer on the internet that will never be fixed, patched or even cared about - "Naaah, it always runs that slow, I should probably buy on of those new faster ones but I have to get my roof repaired this year".... This computer, along with all the other one's "fixed" by people like Ms. X make up the bulk of the internet today and account for most of the problems out there. Which affects me and my users. So, indirectly, Ms X. and her cohorts are affecting me with their BS.... But they do it under the guise of being "experts" to people who are helpless... For some reason I have always had a soft spot, (possibly my only one), for the helpless and rail against those exploiting them whenever I can - it's that character flaw in me.....

Not only did Ms. X. try to further exploit the helpless, she tried to do it by implying I'm incompetent.... That is a very bad mixture to be shaking up when you forgot to put on your asbestos gloves.....

Hope that clarifies my position....

[The_Captain]

*Stands up and starts the slow clap for Tiger Shark*

I constantly watch the other LAN Techs I work with "Bass Tape" (think about it) the teachers in my school district for simple cleanups. 60 dollars an hour in some cases.

It's one thing to get paid for what you're worth, it's completely another to take someone who has no other choice for all they have. No worse quote in all the world than the response to "how much?" with, "how much you got?"

[Goitz]

Yo! TS:

If your position is, indeed, a character flaw to be construed, then I hope everyone else has THAT character flaw and we'd have a better world to live in.

To take the cudgels for those being taken advantage of is definitely hard to come by these days... the phrases "Dog eat dog", "Survival of the fittest", et cetera are so prevalent now that one is often compelled to look at either being the prey or the predator.

As for that psychologist-correspondent, maybe you could "inveigle" her to log in here so she'd realize how miniscule her company's vaunted expertise is! Then she can see that her rantings get rated by others and then she'd understand what a "troll" is.

Cheers to all!

P.S. There's another awful type, I just recalled... those fence-sitters or the hyenas/vultures lurking/hovering and waiting to get in for the spoils once the battle is concluded.

[The Grunt]

When I charge people for computer work, I always go WAY below what they expect, then they feel bad and give me about double what I ask. I almost always get calls back if they have future problems and I'm still about 200% cheaper than most of the rag tag shitty repair places out there... Most of the repair places in my town aren't too bad however, one even installs Spybot and Adaware on every computer that they comes through, and offers and suggests Norton (what they sell) or at least tell them they should get some sort of AV.

[|3lack|ce]

Couple ads I'll tell you of in brief -

My competition:

I will clean your computer and guarantee it is worm, virus, and spyware free for $100.

My (new) ad that I placed just to piss him off (it runs right below his in both the local paper and the local Thrifty Nickel):

Learn how to clean your computer for free! Call (my fax number which is now set up to answer and play a taped message giving URL's for Adaware, and Spybot downloads, with my business number listed as 'in case' in case those fail.)

Ok, so I deal with a few morons - at least I cut this price gouger's huevos down to size...

[PoSer]

I used to do part time work doing pc repair work and the reason I got out of it was for every one real problem I had to fix 20 problems that turned out to be spyware or virus removals. Now some of these can be a challange they are not my favorite things to do. I always provided my customers with free programs (spybot, adware, AVG & sygate) if they were desired and showed them how to maintaine them and how often to run them. The thing that drove me to distraction was for every one customer that took my advice seven more were calling me six mounths later becuse there computers were F@#ked again (mostly becuse they could not rember to hit the check for updates button) ONE EVEN WENT AS FAR AS TO REMOVE THE FREE SOFTWARE I LOADED ON TO HIS SYSTEM BECUSE HIS SOMEONE TOLD HIM THAT I HAD PROBLY LOADED PROGRAMS THAT WOULD STEEL FORM HIM. Needless to say I am no longer fixing other peoples computers I realy don't need the money and my life is stressful enough. So now I keep up my systems and build furniture in my garage during my spare time. I find it much more rewarding than dealing with poeple like the one tiger is talking about.

(just my two cents)

[SuperDooper]

Tiger Shark, you are nothing more than a pompous *******. Credentials? You have NO credentials, you're admittedly "self taught." I loved the way you touted your impressive network of 650 nodes. (Laughs) That’s small-time, any A+ cert. gained through a self-paced CBT could put together that pile of shat you call a network.

It’s nice you felt the need to flex your technical prowess at a PC repair person because she insulted your garbage tutorial on how to secure a home computer. Do you feel better now?