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For some reason the only electronics I get asked for help with are literal e-waste which existence must be considered crime against computing, engineering and even humanity. Because of that, my success rate is less than half of cases. Is it bad, or should I consider it good that people only call me in worst possible cases where everything else failed?
Nothing is e-waste if you’re skilled enough
Anything made by Dell is. Try disassembling one of their mini PCs. I don’t know what tools they have at the dell manufacturing plant, but they must not be made of normal matter that’s all I can tell you, because otherwise how have they managed to put a screw that holds the PSU in place, under the PSU itself.
I beg friends for ewaste and harvest their organs.
Even an Oxford comma couldn’t save that one.
And what do you do with the ewaste?
- Upgrade my own stuff and servers.
- Have spare parts to fix my stuff or quick fixes for friends.
- If I can repair it and do not need it, I found some groups that take them for refugees and needy folks or they go by word of mouth to friends in need. I fix them in a very lazy fashion.
- I live pretty close to one of the local recycling spots, so I can quickly and safely dispose of stuff I cannot use.
- eBay is great.
I have gotten a ton of free storage this way, makes it totally worth it. If they give me a few old laptops, I put all their data on one drive and take the rest.
After a lifetime of being tech support for everyone I know outside of work, I do not relate to this
Nobody asks me anymore because I insist on educating them on how to fix their issues. It paid off after a while. They either fix their own stuff or ask somebody else lol
I’m running into this at work lately. Suits are forcing everyone to move from one email sending service to another to save a few $, and I got stuck tracking the progress of everything that needed to be moved.
Entire departments that openly told me all they do for the company is manage software to generate reports that get sent out via email automatically. One of their guys is using python. One is using some SQL server plugin that mixes “no code” shit with straight C#. Another is using an entire suite of outdated software that has its own proprietary email generation logic, and the only part they’re using is the email generation. The fucking lead? A god damn vbscript, used to dynamically construct a string that is sent to the command prompt to be executed. That string? Launch an existing PowerShell script that sends an email. I’ve seen the whole thing, that’s all it fucking does front to back. Just fucking use PowerShell straight for the love of all that is holy instead of this awful rube goldberg mess.
In other departments, people whose entire job description is “I admin and support these three systems” being unable to do literally anything in their systems without relying on the vendor’s help desk for the software. Shit that I was able to find out in 30 seconds with a search that got me the system documentation, they open a support case and are fucking helpless.
I just want to close the door and get back to working on my stuff, so I can stop taking mental damage from exposure to all the cognitive hazard messes these other supposedly technical teams have shit into existence.
people whose entire job description is “I admin and support these three systems” being unable to do literally anything in their systems without relying on the vendor’s help desk for the software.
I have run into a lot of engineers who would better be described as purchasers of equipment. And those roles are often very necessary, especially in fields like manufacturing engineering where you might have a single engineer specifying/buying/managing millions of dollars in capital equipment that makes money 24 hours a day if running and loses money 24 hours a day if not running.
And the usefulness or uselessness of those individuals varies, just as it does with all people. But to think of somebody with an admin title being SO helpless is pretty crazy. But maybe it’s a win-win for the admin and the software vendor at the expense of the employer, lol.
For me it depends, when it’s an uncle I hardly have a relationship with randomly asking me to fix his printer because I’m good with computers. Then no think you, I just tell him to google the problem or ask Mistral-AI
If it’s my close family then I love helping them
After 1 year of tech support: “I can fix it!”
After 15 years: “I’ve never used a computer in my life.”
I fix stuff because I can’t fix myself.
Aww man that was such a good show! I still miss it sometimes…
installs linux
Not a fan of that font. The tight kerning slows reading.
Doesn’t that distract him from figuring out what he really wants?
He wants to feel useful to his wife
