Last week’s column discussed the difficulty I have making specific hardware recommendations for my senior clients. Even when I take into account their abilities, expectations, and budget, the choices are overwhelming. Maybe I shouldn’t feel like this, but if the client is happy with a choice I made, then it is moderately satisfying. If the client is unhappy, though, then I feel devastated. Making hardware recommendations is definitely a negative sum game for me. (Of course the game can be a positive sum when one folds in the fee structure for consulting, but in practice one cannot make much of an income in that way – it’s better to cultivate long-term relationships of which hardware suggestions are only a part.)

The woman I discussed last week who wanted a second laptop to keep at her second home so she wouldn’t have the hassle of carrying it on an airplane did purchase a new computer. I had scanned all the ads for her and looked for what I thought would be her best buy given the parameters she said were important. She and her husband went to the store with my top-rated buy. After looking at it, they bought a different one.

At first I was a bit disappointed. After all, I had spent time looking for them and they decided not to take my advice. But then sanity returned, and I realized that this is likely the best of all worlds. If they like their new machine, so much the better because I told them where to go to purchase it, and if they don’t like it, I can shrug and say, “Well, I told you…” Not that I would ever say that to a paying client, but I might think it. Either way, they want me to set the new one up for them match their home laptop, so I get some more work and probably some happy customers. My recommendations were not wasted. They became part of the decision process which led them to purchase what they did.

In the future I might make a practice of responding to such requests by offering the three purchases that would meet the client’s needs and not suggest any one of them is the best.

But that is not the only possible situation a tutor can get into while working with clients. Another client managed to damage her HD and decided to buy a new computer. She said she didn’t know what to do with her old one, which was not really working all that well – like it wouldn’t boot or talk to anything. In a moment of relative weakness, I told her I would take it on barter for one hour of tutoring. She was ecstatic, and probably with good reason. It was no good to her, and anything she got was an extra. After some effort, I now have a working eMachine with marginal, but adequate, performance for regular usage. Fixing it was not a challenge, but I really don’t need another computer. When I told my adult son about this, he laughed and said that he currently had seven computers running under Kubuntu performing meaningful data analysis and four others on standby. So maybe I do need another computer, and maybe that should run Linux. He does keep one with Windows on it for those jobs where Windows is more convenient.

Following his lead, I converted one computer to a dedicated Linux machine to practice on in preparation for Vista. And that puts me in another dilemma. Recommending hardware purchases in one thing, but I have never urged any operating system on a client other than suggesting that Windows Me has some difficulties with stability and things. When tutoring seniors, it is a foregone conclusion that they will have experience with Windows. I’ve only met two with Macs, and one of them was given the computer by his son. The other is a graphics artist. At the least, this means that to continue what I am doing, I will have to become familiar with Vista as well as keeping sharp on XP and W2k. Different tutors might handle this situation differently, but I have dedicated machines for W2k and XP and Linux. The recently acquired eMachine will become a Vista bearer, even though it barely meets the “Vista-compatible” recommendations. So maybe I did a good barter after all.

Click here to read about my new tutorial on helping seniors. The new version has grown considerably over the original. It has more topics and anecdotes, and fewer typos. While you’re at it, check out my expanded tutorial on decision theory.

[tags]vista,linux,senior learning,computer repair,senior education,senior tutor,barter[/tags]