Yesterday, I was helping this person with his macbook pro cos he wanted to run windows on it. I asked him for the specs and he told me he had an i7, 8gb memory, 750gb storage, and was running lion.
Once I got to his laptop, he opened it up and I asked him did he know how to bootcamp. He shook his head and I forced a smile. "No problem!" I said, get out your copy of windows 7 and I'll do it for you. "Uhhh... you were supposed to have that?" was what I got. Restraining myself, I pulled out my external hard drive and put a copy of my iso on his desktop.
After the copying was finished, I tried to make another desktop and was shocked to see that he was running snow leopard. When I questioned him about it, I got "This can't be! I spent $2000 on this macbook! and its pro too!" Once again, I forced a smile on my face and pulled up his specs. It turns out he had and i5, 4gb memory, and 350gb storage. "I can't see how you can spend $2000 on this" I said to him and he replied "I don't see how either! I'm just as surprised as you are!" After checking if he had anti-virus on his mac (he didn't) I bootcamped windows for him. I left with the most annoying statement from him ringing in my head "I don't care about all that fancy anti-virus and other stuff like that. In my opinion, if a computer works, then I'm fine with that!"
I've been doing this for a longtime and I understand the frustrations that go with the line of work. It should come as no surprise when you go to a client and they say stuff like," You were supposed to have that for me."
I'd hate to say this but you have to wonder who was being taken advantage of here. Windows isn't cheap, but people certainly can be. They can see that they are about to pay $119.00- $220.00 in software alone at a local store and think," Maybe I'll just try to get a free copy from the tech guy."
I've heard stuff like," I had it on my computer before this happened so why can't you......." My answer is,"Because I don't see it here now, if you get the disk I'd be happy to install it for you, otherwise I'd be happy to go get you a retail copy at $XXX.XX price and install it for you."
As a tech all you can do is tell someone," This is what I recommend, or this is what we are going to do." You don't want antivirus software on your PC? You want to run windows that way? That's fine by me I'll see you in a few days to pull that nasty virus from your computer, but don't say I didn't warn you that it was going to happen.
I've learned many things over theese years and I've learned how uninformed, and also how crappy and crafty some people can be when it comes to I.T. work of any kind.
For example:
I once had a customer tell me at the end of 2 hours of work that because I didn't make a running computer out of the spare parts he provided that he wasn't going to pay me my labor rates for the time I spent doing the work. We had an understanding( as always for anyone who brings me a bunch of non working computers) at the beginning of the job that this was my hourly rate, and on that particular job I couldn't be sure that the machines provided to me for parts would make a working machine and he may have to purchase some parts to get a working machine.
Needless to say at the end of that particular job he defended his decision that he shouldn't pay me if I didn't produce a working computer. Because as he put it," I didn't do anything so why should he pay me anything." WHAT?! I didn't do anything?!
It's those times that make you learn phrases like, "If you refuse to pay I'll see you in court sir." You also learn that there won't be a next visit to them, if and when they call you for something else that needs repair.
When it comes to any type of free software, you have to remember that legally you can't provide a free copy of what they don't have. The Apple store lives by this rule. You bring them a Mac and tell them it had blank OS on it, and you had that one on it even though theres currently a blank hard drive in it now. LOL they'll gladly put whatever it came with from the factory at the time of purchase for that machine right back on it for you. That's all you get, upgrades you pay for.
So as they would do: You want Lion on a machine that shipped with Snow leopard, or Leopard? You'll get Lion on it when you either pay them for it, or produce proof of purchase of the software, or the copy you bought.
You want windows on your Mac for free? Try convincing the Apple store, or The Geek Squad to go do that for you. They'll tell you, "This is the retail price of Windows version X. We will install that on your Mac whichever way you like it on there when you
PURCAHSE A COPY and bring it to us."
When it comes to being a computer technician, or consultant, just like a plumber, or an electrician, house painter etc... will tell you at the beginning of any job," This is my quote, this is my hourly rate, do you agree to these terms before we begin, and do you understand these terms?" If I get a no, that's fine too, there are other customers out there that need work done, have a good day.
