I am going to let everyone in on a trade secret. This may get me hate mail or even death threats from the "computer geek" crowd, but I am sick of people getting screwed because of incompetence.... so here it is:
If a "computer geek" can not figure out a problem, they will try to save face by talking over your head and telling you it is not fixable. They will never tell you they don't know; no matter what their skill level is the answer will be if I can't fix it, its not fixable.
I met a customer this week who has a "computer geek" friend he lets work on all his stuff. He called me with a laptop that his friend had messed up while trying to install Windows 7. After I fixed it, and explained to him (nicely) that his friend didn't know what the hell he was doing, he started telling me about all of the other "un-fixable" computers he had.
The guy starts bringing out computers from a back room that he has been told by the "computer geek friend" could not be fixed. About that time, his friend showed up and there was one computer that he assured me was "fried". He explained to me that it overheated and either the MB or CPU was junk.
The customer was upset about it because it was his favorite computer so I told him I would take a look at it and if there was nothing I could do, I wouldn't charge him. The friend scoffed and started talking to me about all the stuff he knew, apparently trying to test my knowledge.
People who know me know I am a bit cocky when it comes to my abilities of computer work, but I do not brag to people, I just let my work do the talking. That changes in the presence of self-proclaimed gurus. I love to call them out on their bullshit.
Among other things, he starts telling me about this brand-new OS coming out called Ubuntu and asks if I have ever seen it. (Ubuntu has been out a bit over 6 years now) He starts telling me about how great it is and how its going to kill Windows... and how Bill Gates is a greedy bastard (For those that don't know, Bill Gates is no longer CEO of Microsoft and spends the majority of his time with his wife giving his mass fortune away to charities via the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation).
He continues to tell me about how dangerous water-cooling systems are, how a router can make a single computer internet connection faster, and how most motherboards can use either an AMD or Intel CPU (all of which is bullshit by the way) and once I was finished schooling him on all that I took the customer's poor un-fixable computer with me.
Long story, but here's the punchline: The un-fixable computer had a loose wire from the power supply and is now up and running fine. It's a miracle I tell ya.
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