Cleaning up Windows - no more

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 11:35:48 GMT

I refuse to fix, descum or wipe computers for people who don't want to care about computer security - or just don't want to get to grips with a Windows install disc. Each time I copy off personal stuff, install Windows, patch Windows, install Windows anti-virus, install a secure browser and shore up the computer with the necessary extraneous gubbins, it's usually five-to-eight hours out of my life that I won't get back. It happens often enough (Half a dozen times a year, and mostly the same people, for the past ten years) to put my foot down in this way.

To this end, I state the following: Computer fixing jobs for those whom I am not already in a business relationship are henceforth £25 an hour, with a minimum time of two hours.[0]

It should filter out the low-hanging stuff. I do this for a living, and won't bring my work home with me any more. Occasional[1] or one-off advice remains free.

I have done this nearly a hundred times for people who don't understand that opening leettr0jan.exe, or following dodgy email/facebook/twitter messages probably won't result in a neat new screensaver? I am tempted to make a virus and call it i_am_a_fucking_moron_with_no_understanding_of_basic_computer_security.exe.

I wrote this post a while back as another New Year resolution, and chucked it since I come across as a knobend. If you're offended by this, imagine wasting six hundred hours of your time for no recompense other than avoiding guilt-tripping. Fuck guilt.

And of course: Cracked.com has summed it up perfectly.

[0] - unless you've got an interesting[1] problem, and/or an interesting conversational style - and you're willing to stick around throughout, in which the fee transmutes to two bottles of very decent[1] single malt whisky.
[1] - the meaning of "interesting", "decent" and "occasional", are such afforded at my sole discretion.

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scotm

Cleaning up Windows - no more