All across Toronto..

Robert Brockway robert-5LEc/6Zm6xCUd8a0hrldnti2O/JbrIOy at public.gmane.org
Mon Nov 10 14:40:19 UTC 2003


On Mon, 10 Nov 2003, James Knott wrote:

> I spent yesterday afternoon trying to resolve a problem with Outlook
> Express for a friend.

I bet it was fun too.

Back when I was a university student I would help friends with computer
problems.  Before long I realised that I chose not to use windows to avoid
so many of those problems but were winding up fixing them on other peoples
windows boxes.  When I told them that unix didn't have these problems they
would always say "But windows is so easy".  To which I would always
counter "If it is so easy why did I need to come over & fix it for you?"
:)

Anyway, I stopped doing computer fixes for free.  Not because I am
uncharitable (in actuality I have given thousands of hours to volunteer
efforts and charities) but because it sets computing apart.  I don't ask
my mechanic friends to fix the car for free, and I don't ask my doctor
friends to give me free medical advice but for some reason many people
think computer skills, developed over a period of many years, should be
given away for free.  If the skills aren't worth anything then why do they
need us so much?

This does lead me back to being on topic... :)  By fixing windows problems
for other people, and thus shielding them from how bad windows really can
be to manage, we are infact perpetuating the myth that it is easy to use.
People look over your shoulder as you tap away from an hour or two but
don't realise the tricks and strategies you might have used to fix the
problem or the stress you experienced because you had all of their
(unbacked up) data in your hands.  If the whole thing comes crashing down
and they lose data you can bet they won't accept an explanation that it
was "windows fault".

Now, we're all free to give away our skills as we chose, but I've often
wondered why computer skills are valued so poorly by many people that they
expect their computer literate friends to give up their time and do these
things for free when no other class of professional is expected to do
this.

Cheers,
	Rob

-- 
Robert Brockway B.Sc. email: robert-5LEc/6Zm6xCUd8a0hrldnti2O/JbrIOy at public.gmane.org, zzbrock at uqconnect.net
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