Readers Digest called IT professions Rat Finks?

[handygal]

Ok, not really, but Reader's Digest published an article called "10 Things IT Professionals Don't Want You to Know." In it they say we stretch 5 minute jobs to an hour, blame our mistakes on the computer and do some other unprofessional things. Of their 10 things, I'll agree with maybe 2 of them, but barely. What do you think?

http://www.rd.com/slideshows/10-thin...ideshow=slide1

[ASUS]

Originally Posted by handygal

What do you think?

Ya really wana know... SOBees #### ### #####
It's a family show round here....


Your best best is, hang round here, what cant learn someone will be glad to assist

[Rikky]

Is there any trade that doesn't commit most of those sins? It's human nature

In it they say we stretch 5 minute jobs to an hour

I'm not an IT pro but I've fixed a lot of computers and I don't know why anyone would want to stretch a fix out,the way I feel when I fix them is the sooner I get the damn thing out of my sight the better

The longer it take for me to fix a computer the shorter my life will be...

[sibeer]

I only have issue with 1 and 9, morally speaking. All the others make sense to me.

[Adrynalyne]

I can't take a magazine that my grandmother reads while on the toilet serious about anything.

Tell us Reader's Digest: Are you proud that you live next to the pooper in a basket?

[Major Attitude]

10 things Readers Digest does not want you to know:

10: We like to scare our old fart readers.
9: We like to scare our old fart readers.
8: We like to scare our old fart readers.
7: We like to scare our old fart readers.
6: We like to scare our old fart readers.
5: We like to scare our old fart readers.
4: We like to scare our old fart readers.
3: We like to scare our old fart readers.
2: We like to scare our old fart readers.
1: Old people can't find our website

[LauraR]

Originally Posted by Adrynalyne

I can't take a magazine that my grandmother reads while on the toilet serious about anything.

Tell us Reader's Digest: Are you proud that you live next to the pooper in a basket?

Originally Posted by Major Attitude

10 things Readers Digest does not want you to know:

10: We like to scare our old fart readers.
9: We like to scare our old fart readers.
8: We like to scare our old fart readers.
7: We like to scare our old fart readers.
6: We like to scare our old fart readers.
5: We like to scare our old fart readers.
4: We like to scare our old fart readers.
3: We like to scare our old fart readers.
2: We like to scare our old fart readers.
1: Old people can't find our website

'Zactly!


I used to find my grandmother's when I was a kid and go through looking for the cartoons. I can't imagine getting computer info from there. It must be the 'condensed' version on what you should know about computers.

[ACE 256]

I have worked at a computer shop and have for what seems like forever, so let me tackle these one at a time.

1. We use the word "corruption" when we don't have a real answer. I was helping a customer a couple weeks ago move email over from one system to another and accidentally lost all of his calendar items. Of course I didn't tell him it was my fault. What happened? Corruption.

This sounds like mambo jumbo to me. But then again we have never lied to a customer like that. I personally prefer the line "Anything can break at any time". Honesty is the best policy and most customers understand and appreciate it.

2. Google will not solve everything. Google is an amazingly helpful tool where you can find most answers to your tech questions by searching yourself... BUT I know which solutions are true and which are not. I can do a Google search for something and weed out all the illegitimate answers and know which ones make sense, which ones work, and which ones will cause more problems.

Sounds about right to me.

3. Yes, Macs are more secure, but......not because they are some superior machine that works perfectly, but because the majority of the world uses PCs. The criminals want to attack the majority of the world. They want to steal people's credit card information and only 0.01% of the time its going to work so they choose to attack 100 million machines vs. 20 million.

This is true for the most part. We do not hide the fact. We tell everyone who is interested in a mac.

4. You can't hide anything from us. Think trashing cookies and clearing your web history are keeping you invisible? Think again. Everything still goes through my firewall, which sees all traffic when you connect to the Internet. It goes from your computer to a device that directs the traffic out. That's why we can use things like content filters that block sites like Facebook, YouTube, and pornography.

Sounds like a lot of made up scare tactics to me. Some of it doesn't even make any sense.

5. It drives me crazy when. You dont listen. If I tell you not to go to a site or to avoid doing something and you do it anyway, and then your computer gets a virus, I will not want to help you as much because I know why you're having a problem. It's because you did not follow our instructions Or when you just ignore the work I've done to explain something. People will ask me how to do simple tasks that I have spent time documenting for them. Read the document. I'm taking screen shots and writing instructions to make things easier for you.

100% True. I will happily explain to a customer how and why they have gotten a virus. P2P, torrents and crack/hack sites are a good example of this. If they come back with the same virus from the same place after I told them how to avoid it its no skin of my back. The price is the same so I can only hope they will learn, or not. We can give good advice, but cant make anyone take it.

6. Computers naturally slow down with age. The hardest, sometimes impossible, thing to do is make an old computer faster. You have a hard drive that spins 7,200 times a minute inside that wears out and slows down. I'll try to fix it, but sometimes new is just better.

I'm sorry sir your hard drive was a 7,200 RPM drive but it is now only a 4,200 RPM drive. Do they research or do they just throw random useless facts in?
Not really true for the most part (assuming the system is not way old). Normally you can just add more ram and get most older systems working well as at least internet systems.

7. Urgency is based on priority. Just because you say your problem's urgent doesn't really mean it's urgent to me. Your email not working is not as important as another customer's server being down.

We work on systems in the order they came in. We do however have a rush processing fee that bumps you to the front of the line.

8. Email me. I prefer email over phone calls. I would love to talk to you on the phone, but it's not efficient. Email me a list of your problems and questions and it's a lot easier for me to respond to them all.

Nope. We like actually talking to the customer, preferably face to face. An email is easy to ignore or lie to even for someone with the best of intentions.

9. Sometimes we're asked to get dirt on employees a company wants to fire. I was once asked to sniff out all of an employee's traffic and show what sites she went to and how much time she spent surfing.

No never. Sounds shady to me. I would think this is not the norm at all.

Sometimes we make 5 minute jobs last an hour.

Sure do. If we fix it 5 mins after the customer dropped it off it would seem suspicious if we called. We have even gotten customers who get irate calming we did nothing at all to there systems. We often let systems "cool off" for at least an hour to allow for a nice buffer. This leads to happy customers and happy staff and more importantly no miss understandings and undue stress.

[gman863]

As the owner of a PC repair shop, here's my list:

1. If your PC can't access the Internet or is running deathly slow, the #1 suspect is corruption from viruses, malware or all the junk programs you and your kids downloaded.

2. It is practically impossible for a non-geek to remove a virus/malware infection once it's embedded in Windows. Purchasing a virus removal program advertised on late night TV is like flushing your money down the toilet.

3. Unless you're using high-end photo, video or similar software on a regular basis, a Windows-based PC is just as functional as a Mac at roughly half the cost.

4. Aside from getting rid of viruses and malware, I really don't give a damn what you have on your PC. Unless I stumble across child porn or an Al-Queda plot to blow up a city, the fact you have dirty movies and pictures on your hard drive doesn't phase me one bit.

5. I try my best to tell you what types of downloads are virus and malware bait. If you ignore my advice, please don't whine when you have to bring your PC back in a month or two and pay for another cleaning.

6. Unlike Jesus, I cannot turn water into wine - or, in your case, turn a ten year old PC with a single core processor into something with the performance of an i5 processor for high-end gaming or HD video editing. If you need something capable of running the latest software, I'll be happy to give you a quote on a new PC.

7. (In addition to what ACE256 said,) If I end up having to use a restore disc on a crashed hard drive or extreme virus/malware infection, it takes several hours for Windows updates to load and install. Do you want it back fast or want it done right? Pick one.

8. At the risk of sounding rude, I'd rather you bring the PC in so I can see what it is (or isn't) doing. A basic 10 minute estimate is free. This is especially true if all you can tell me is something along the lines of "The black box doesn't come on." or speak broken English to the point I can hardly understand what you're saying.

9. If you want to get dirt on your spouse or an employee, hire a PI.

10. Like most auto mechanics, I bill flat rate for carry-in service. If I luck out and finish an hour job in 5 minutes, the House wins. If a 15 minute job turns into two hours due to unforeseen glitches, the customer wins.

11. If you want me to come to your house, you have to pay for my time. My rate of $60 per hour for on-site service is cheap compared to most other techs in the area.

12. I don't care if someone has an ad on Craigslist advertising virus removal for $35. My rates are less than 50% of Office Depot or Geek Squad. If you want an uninsured stranger working on your PC (and possibly casing your house in the process), just remember you get what you pay for.

13. As noted in #12, the same applies for Windows 7, Office 2010, etc. I only use genuine software.

14. The people who still buy Readers Digest are usually the same ones who read The National Enquirer and other pulp rags. If they take everything they read to heart, it's likely the actually believe Elvis and Bigfoot were married in a gay wedding in Las Vegas last week.

[LauraR]

3. Unless you're using high-end photo, video or similar programs on a regular basis, a Windows-based PC is just as functional as a Mac at roughly half the cost.

Just out of curiosity and the fact that I run very high end photo processing software of multiple varieties on my Windows laptop, what makes you say that?

If it wasn't obvious, I disagree with you that you need a Mac even for that anymore.

14. The people who still buy Readers Digest are usually the same ones who read The National Enquirer and other pulp rags. If they take everything they read to heart, it's likely the actually believe Elvis and Bigfoot were married in a gay wedding in Las Vegas last week.

Come to think of it, my grandmother had Reader's Digest AND was the only person I knew who bought National Inquirer.


All good points btw...well, other than the above stated Number 3.

[gman863]

Originally Posted by LauraR

Just out of curiosity and the fact that I run very high end photo processing software of multiple varieties on my Windows laptop, what makes you say that?

If it wasn't obvious, I disagree with you that you need a Mac even for that anymore.

The only reason I say this is based on feedback from friends who do high end graphics and design work at advertising agencies.

Although I (and they) agreed the gap has narrowed, they still swear Photoshop runs faster on a Mac.

[LauraR]

Originally Posted by gman863

Although I (and they) agreed the gap has narrowed, they still swear Photoshop runs faster on a Mac.

I can't claim to have a comparison since I've never run it on a Mac, but I have zero issue/delays/etc when running it on my Windows. It runs just as fast as any other software I use. I don't run video editing stuff, though. I am curious though, why, technically speaking, a Mac could possibly run specific software like that faster. That's actually a legit question as I see the claim by Apple users and have always discounted it based on my experience with Photoshop/Photomatrix/etc. As far as Hardware specs, it doesn't make sense to me, but maybe I'm wrong. Is it based on file handling or something?

[gman863]

Originally Posted by LauraR

As far as Hardware specs, it doesn't make sense to me, but maybe I'm wrong. Is it based on file handling or something?

Since I'm not a Mac user, I have to plead ignorance on this question.

Any Mac geeks out there who can give us an answer?

[Phantom]

Okay, so I own an I.T. Co. as well. A Mac is better than a P.C. in one way. It can run Mac specific propriety software. P.C.'s can equal or exceed Mac's in performance, including graphics if you have a beefy enough video-card, fast RAM, C.P.U., decent mainboard, etc. Also, most Apple apps have a P.C. port-over or equivalent these days. As stated, a big price/software availability difference between the two - meaning P.C.'s do more for a lot less money.
Yeah, schools and such use Mac's over here, but only because the Govt. contractors supply them, presumably with some form of kick-back.
I would not have a problem with most of the so-called 'warnings' about P.C.Techs, except for the snooping one. As said, wanna snoop? - hire a P.I. Some jobs are completed in 5-10 mins, (though not a lot, I admit). Some take half a day, (several?). I have a minimum charge that applies to repair/upgrade/network orders, which is always pointed out before hand. Think you're being ripped off? Take your business elsewhere and good riddance.

[dyamond]

I in no way consider my self an IT professional but I have helped some people fix some minor things and I completely agree with #5. I've have on numerous occasions taken a good amount of time to clearly and concisely explain to people how to use/do something (or not to do something) only to have them ask me less than a week later how do it or to fix it again because they've done what I told them not to do. It is quite frustrating.

I don't really know/have never done any of the others, especially making a 5 minute job last an hour.. the sooner I am done, the faster I can get away from you!

[LauraR]

Originally Posted by Phantom

Okay, so I own an I.T. Co. as well. A Mac is better than a P.C. in one way. It can run Mac specific propriety software. P.C.'s can equal or exceed Mac's in performance, including graphics if you have a beefy enough video-card, fast RAM, C.P.U., decent mainboard, etc.

Yeah, that was my thought. I think it's one of those deals where they are trying to hold onto that illusion for as long as they can along with the fact that 'Macs don't get viruses'.

[Adrynalyne]

Here is my list, that applies mostly to my retarded family:


1. Asking me to fix your computer conjures thoughts of setting fire to your house while you sleep.



Thats it.

[Serious Sam]

I mostly barter nowadays, I've come out WAY ahead so far, & I don't do support for family........... (except my wife & kids)

[handygal]

Originally Posted by gman863

3. Unless you're using high-end photo, video or similar software on a regular basis, a Windows-based PC is just as functional as a Mac at roughly half the cost.

We run InDesign and the Adobe CS5 on a PC, absolutely no hesitation. We render 3-D models and do all sorts of fun things with it. It takes forever for that bad boy to boot up, but once it's up, it is fast. I found that dollar for dollar, there is nothing to gain by going to Mac. The PC is a beast though, 96GB of RAM. I take the cover off just to show people what that looks like!

[handygal]

Maybe I'm a hypocrite. I just had a user pop me up and ask me to check the connection speed because the user is running slow. I said sure, but I know it's not the connection. It's the same thing I always explain, I'm tired of it, I'll just say yes until I get the message - thanks, all better now!