(no subject)

[plonq]

The pattern is familiar.  A friend approached me and said, "I have some friends who want to upgrade their computer, and I wondered if you could help me put it together."

"Sure," I said, "what are the details?"

"Well, they are currently using [a system that would have been okay in 1997] and would like to upgrade to [a system that is nearly state-of-the-art] but they are a bit tight with money, so their total budget is [almost enough to buy a fancy mouse].  They are pretty inflexible with the budget."

I knew what the result would be, but I did some shopping and comparing online and finally put together a sexy little system (better than what I am using right now) with solid, name-brand parts.  The problem is that it came out 12% over their budget after tax.  I showed the system specs to this friend, and out came the knife.  Here is the exchange (with a bit of paraphrasing for brevity):

Him: This video card has TV out.  They don't need TV out.  You could probably save money by scrapping that feature.
Me: The next card down is slower, has half the memory, and is only $10 cheaper.
Him: There, see?  Right there you're saving $10.  They don't need that much in a video card.  Why did you put such a fast CPU in it?
Me: Because that's the cheapest one in the line with the new core.  There's no point in making the system obsolete right from the start.
Him: They don't need something that fast...

I knew where this was going, so I told him to leave me alone again for a few minutes while I redid the system from scratch.  I then picked out all of the cheapest, non-name parts that I could find.  The motherboard is one of those ones that has onboard video, audio, LAN, and an overclocked CPU soldered onto the board.  I dropped in 256mb of the cheapest no-name memory they carried, a 40g Maxtor drive with a 2mb buffer, the cheapest CDRW drive they offer, a floppy and a slightly-inflated estimate on the cost of a case.  The whole thing came out to about 94% of their budget, so I upped the memory and motherboard and put it at 107%.  When he balked at that, I told him that he could probably bring it down to par again by skimping on the case.

"This looks like a decent system," he said.  "It should last them for a few years."

"No, this will not last them for a few years.  This motherboard is cheap for a reason.  I can't promise that it will last for more than one or two years before it fails.  I can promise you at least four years out of the first system I put together, but I refuse to give any guarantees on this one to last out the year."

"Hm.  Ya, so if I skimp on the case this will come in just under budget.  They'll be happy about that."

Oy.

Comments

[funos.livejournal.com]

ugh.

[plonq.livejournal.com]

I have always found that the old axiom "you get what you pay for" applies very strongly to computers and their components.

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

It sounds like the one, and only, criteria was price. If so, then you did exactly what they wanted.

[plonq.livejournal.com]

I know, but it pained me no less to do it. He's bringing the parts by after work today so that I can help him assemble the machine. I think I will just supervise and let him do all the work, with the understanding that once the machine goes out the door I am washing my hands of it for any further maintenance.

[feren.livejournal.com]

[Hm. Ya, so if I skimp on the case this will come in just under budget. They'll be happy about that.]

... and that's when I shot him, your honor.

This scenario is exactly why I don't build PCs for family, provide tech support for friends or even acknowledge that I know what a computer is anymore.

[plonq.livejournal.com]

I don't mind doing this for friends and family, but usually when they come to me for advice, they are willing to trust my judgment when I present them with a final product that goes a bit over their budget (though I usually try to stay just under).

[feren.livejournal.com]

I didn't mind it either for the first couple years, but eventually it became a matter of my personal time being infringed upon to ridiculous extents. If I built a PC for them then they'd call me for support anytime even the simplest thing went wrong. If I fixed something on somebody else's machine and they had any problem three months later ("My mouse stopped working! What did you do?!?!" Yes... my repairing the shortcut to Excel is clearly responsible for your mouse not working five weeks later...) I'd get a call. In either case it was the reasoning of "You're responsible for supporting this because you touched it last/built it/etc." If I tried to gently explain that I couldn't help them at that exact moment I'd get blasted -- that was insult to my injury.

Once these support calls got to the point I couldn't get legitimate work done around my own home I said "no more" and swore off the good samaritan role forever. I very quickly reached the conclusion that 24x7 support is what big manufacturers get paid to do, so I told anybody who asked to go buy from them and leave me alone. Will they get as good a product for the price as I could offer? No, but I stopped feeling guilty because they'd get support any time they wanted it. I guess I was just handed one too many demands of "stop working on your own projects and come fix this PC after I've downloaded the latest designer worm." You could say that in a sense I doomed myself because I wasn't charging for my services (I figured friends and family are worth it) but they started getting a sense of entitlement that was way out of proportion.

Entitlement + unrealistic expectations as you outlined above = I don't want to be involved.

[plonq.livejournal.com]

I think atara would be happy if I started saying "no" to some of these folks.

"I'm sorry, but I suddenly no longer possess the knowledge that you require. Here is a price list from a local computer dealer."

[feren.livejournal.com]

That statement is far more convincing if you cram your mouth full of Efferdent just prior to replying with it.

[feren.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah... you have to twitch, too. The twitching is crucial.

[atara.livejournal.com]

You need to start charging them in beer.

[elynne.livejournal.com]

*facepalm*

[plonq.livejournal.com]

It was a case of *headdesk* this time around, but the sentiment is the same.

[kamiten.livejournal.com]

Where do you shop for parts, out of curiousity?

[plonq.livejournal.com]

Computer Boulevard. Their prices are generally competitive with the local market, and they have about the largest selection (almost always in stock!) of anyone in town. Also my dealings with them have (to date) been unfailingly positive.

Places like NCIX and Tiger Direct have cheaper prices, but the folks I build systems for usually don't want to wait for (or trust) mail-order.