Arrogant computer guys really bother me. I try very hard not to be a computer guy who thinks he knows everything.
The problem with this is that I am sometimes competing with computer guys who convince people that they do know everything. When I try to straighten out the situation, I get the line, “but the guy at Best Buy said that Norton is the best.” or “But my son who has worked at HP for 20 years says that Vista is much faster.”
When I try to explain using experience and logic, they don’t want to listen. Logically, wouldn’t it make more sense to listen to someone who isn’t trying to sell something. Even better, someone who deals with problems in real-life homes and businesses every day?
Stereotypically, computer guys are known for their bad attitudes. I am beginning to figure out why this is so. Computer guys have a lot to be grumpy about. The following list is not a list of complaints as much as it is a list of truths that explain why computer guys can be a little edgy sometimes.
How does this add up to a grumpy computer guy? I will illustrate with the following story. It is actually not a single event but a story of actual events that took place in one day, in one room very recently.
Picture a convention setting. Many people in the room. It was not a computer convention, nor did it have anything to do with technology. Most of the people in this room know that I am a computer guy by trade. As I walked across the room, I was stopped seven times. It took me an hour and a half to get across the convention floor.
In every case I tried to nicely point the people to HelpMeRick.com, I gave them a few ideas of what they could try, I even wrote down some notes amd these were the responses I received:
I explained that I have a business where I do house calls and solve such problems and teach such processes and thus received this chorus of replies:
In every case, I told explained that it was up to them, but I charge money to fix problems.
Most of them thanked me but acted like I was holding back a secret fix in order to extort money. A couple of them stopped short of calling me names.
I received a call on Easter morning, (which I didn’t answer, but listened to the message today.) the caller said essentially, “I am having problems with my computer and will be home all day today if you can stop by.”
I will end this article with a few secrets:
I do not want to be mistaken for an arrogant computer guy, but I do hope that this article makes people think about what it’s like to be a computer guy in a world where every other profession, most hobbies and even civilization depend on good computer guys.
Great article Adam! I whole heartedly agree, and would like to add to your last paragraph that when a doctor, plumber, or lawyer walks across the floor at a “convention”, they would never get seven or eight questions…often no questions at all! After almost 13 years of operating my business, I am just now starting to understand the value of my knowledge and expertise. In fact, I will be arrogant and say that I believe there is not one person in the state of Colorado and possibly the United States of America, and possibly the entire planet that can troubleshoot, fix, and explain what I did to a computer as quickly or as thoroughly as I can.
Because Adam and I have worked together for a number of years, I think he follows as a close second to me because he has grasped the importance of being able to relate to the common computer user and include them in the process.
Adam and I both have an intense desire to teach and spread our common sense knowledge of computers. We work tirelessly here at HelpMeRick.com to give anyone who visits the advantage of our experiences and expertise. We know that computer users who heed our advice and practice our common-sense approach to computing save themselves money and are happier more productive computer users than those who don’t follow our advice. We know because we see it and experience it every single day.
Please use our site and spread the word about it.
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Youse guys sound like COMPUTER THEORISTS….
that we want to share technical knowledge with the world and have them learn so they can save time and money, then YES, we are computer theorists. Too often, computers become time and money pits for their owners, and that’s exactly the opposite of their intention.
Excellent blog in general, but I felt compelled to comment on your sentence, “A good on-call computer guy is worth more than a good a good doctor, mechanic or plumber….”
I take issue with the context in which you used the word “worth”. “Worth” = “value” = individual subjective notion. “Worth” and “value” are in the eye of the beholder, in the context of willing buyers and willing sellers functioning in a coercion-free marketplace (aka “free market”).
Most doctors I know would say that good doctors are “worth” more than good computer guys, which is why I am not all that impressed by the opinions of either group, especially if they happen to manifest a general ignorance in the subjects of economics, politics, and law. See the writings of such as Ayn Rand and Ralph Borsodi, Von Mises, Bastiat, Hayek, Rothbard, and Sowell, to name but a few important thinkers.
Actually, my computer guys are great, so I have no complaints in that department.
My primary care doc is a nice guy, too, but is a bit brainwashed by a pro-elitist system, which uses the power of government to give the medical profession a “legal” monopoly on pain control and access to medical supplies.
To level the playing field, what is needed is an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution giving the individual the absolute right to “doctor” himself. Nobody is asking for the right to “doctor” 3rd parties without the proper training.
But it is a simple fact of life that 1) by their own statistics the medical profession manages to kill or injure some 15 million people per year without getting so much as an OSHA ticket, 2) there is nowhere near as much money in preventing disease as in doing surgeries and treating chronic diseases, 3) 95% of what doctors do in their offices could be successfully done by the individual “doctoring” himself, and 4) if people ever learn how to live in peace and good health, lawyers and doctors would have to find some other way to make a living.
To the extent that your blog was intended to encourage a bit more understanding and courtesy from your customers, I suspect (and hope) it served its purpose well.
To the extent the blog’s tone might be interpreted by some to contain a bit of uncharacteristic whining, I would suggest that computer guys count their blessings that they are not burger flippers or big-box store greeters. At least nobody asks them questions on a convention floor!
The free market is what it is, and will be what it will be. At least, at this point in time, computer consumers are free to buy books and parts and try to fix their own computers ? unlike medical care consumers.
Meanwhile, please be a little more careful before tossing around such subjective words as “worth” (and/or “value”) so carelessly. It’s all too easy to sound a little arrogant when you don’t mean to. Maybe we should let the doctors be the judge of that!
I heard Rick and Adam praising disc cleanup over two years ago on the GCN network, where I streamed their terrestrial show and it has saved me at least three thousand dollars personally and many thousands more for my friends and business associates.
So simple….and I never thought of it before
keep on conspiring new shows and posts
Dr Rick and Mac Man Adam
I appreciate my computer guys PRECISELY because they work their butts off on their website (helpmerick.com) to help educate computer users to where they become self-sufficient. They actually want me to become computer savvy, and I really appreciate that!
Unlike the doctors, mentioned in a previous post, my computer guys aren’t trying to manipulate the powers of government to give them “legal” monopolies on the storage and retrieval of information so as to inflate the “value” of their labor in the free market.
Remember humans’ most basic Producer-Consumer conflict: every last one of us wants to get paid as much as possible for his own time, labor and produce, while simultaneously paying as little as possible for the “other guy’s” time, labor and produce.
It’s quite impossible for the powers of government to solve that conflict. ONLY a free marketplace comprised of willing sellers and willing buyers in an atmosphere 100% devoid of coercion can do the job.
Now, if only we can persuade the shamanistic legal and medical profession cultures to voluntarily give up their “legal” monopolies on justice and pain relief!
Here’s another idea: maybe we could print up some “Give Your Computer Guy a Hug!” T-shirts! (Or maybe make a donation on his website ? just to show him somebody cares!)