Gnomie M. Nelson writes:

Life as computer repairman can be challenging at times. Running my own small business, that makes me one of the very few people in my area who goes to people’s houses to solve their computer problems. As many well know, it can be not only interesting, but very frustrating.

My business substantially consists of older folks who, for the lack of a better description, really need to take a few basic computer courses. Most of my older customers are sweethearts, and I admire them trying to “get with the times,” so to speak. As always, there are a few who, in reality, make me see red more times than not. Not because they forget how to do this or that, but because they refuse to change their ways when they plunge themselves in this new technology. Being a one-man business going to people’s houses to fix their computers means that I can only deal with one computer at a time. Scheduling can be a headache when penciling them in for a two hour time slot ends up being a three or four hour repair job. Let me say that I don’t really mind those as it comes with the territory of my business.

What bothers me are the people who can do simple jobs but refuse to do so. I received a call from a customer whose computer I repaired the day before - it was full of spyware and a few Trojan horses. It was an older Dell with Windows ME installed, which means it had the older shutdown menu that hides the different actions inside a check box; the user has to click on the check mark to bring up restart, shutdown, etc.

The previous day, I had to restart the computer after installing all the spyware-killing programs that I put on every one of my customers’ computers. It was left on restart when I left as that is just what Windows ME does. The husband called the next morning demanding that I set the computer back to the previous settings. Confused at to what he wanted me to do, I scheduled him between a couple of jobs that I knew would take a while, so I allowed for a few hours of lead time.

When I got over there, I asked him what the computer was doing, and all he told me was it wouldn’t shut down and kept restarting. Thinking that some of the changes I made the previous day had affected the machine so it wouldn’t shut down, I tried to duplicate the problem. The machine shut down flawlessly. I further asked him more questions trying to identify what was going on when he said I made the change already.

I looked at him confused, and then it hit me. To say the least, I had to contain the building anger. He could not or would not tell the computer to shut down as Windows ME leaves the previous shut or restart action showing in the shutdown box. In this case, it was restart. All I could say is, “well, the computer will shut down now.”

I walked out so angry that I had wasted the gas to go over there because he, for some reason, refused to click on the shut down option. I work in conjunction with an established local computer shop as the owner is the one who trained me and encouraged me to go out on my own. When I told him about the incident, he shook his head and said, “I would have charged him an arm and a leg.” The next time I went over there to make their e-mail accept attachments, they did get charged $25.00 for five minutes work.

I feel better now, if nothing else, just to let off steam.