fixing staff personal machines.

Many many yrs ago, I split up with a g/f. We were in the i'm not calling you before you call me first, stage. Anyway the parents always liked me and decided to call me to help fix. i think part of it was to break the ice.. Being polite I went around there and fixed it. To say thanks the mother gave me a bottle of Turkish or some other 3rd world country, wine. I was not happy. It permanently ended the relationship. A bottle of Turkish wine. !!!!! The bloody cheek of it !
 
Must be a small companies thing. I did a few years 1st-line and PC repairs for a 25-employee firm. A few of them took their PCs to my house (I can't drive) to repair in my own time and I just charged them a few cans of beer for each job :-)
 
i dont work in IT at work, but if something goes wrong, il take a quick look before they call in the tech team (i work nights, they dont, so it sometimes saves a guy getting out of bed)

if people bring me laptops and stuff to fix, i have no problem with it. i do it in my time and make sure they know that i will be in no rush to fix it and that i will do it as and when i get round to it.

it gets me some nice little freebies, so why not!
 
This happens at my place (5000 employees) but it is in personal time only. I have no interest in it but have been asked a couple of times and direct them to someone else. Staff expecting them to fix their personal computer in work time for free are pushing their luck way too much.
 
I've done it in a number of jobs now, I do it to keep the relationships friendly but when it's not someone important it's much easier to charge and do it on personal time or even just shy away completely if they're a nob.

thedoc46 said:
Many many yrs ago, I split up with a g/f. We were in the i'm not calling you before you call me first, stage. Anyway the parents always liked me and decided to call me to help fix. i think part of it was to break the ice.. Being polite I went around there and fixed it. To say thanks the mother gave me a bottle of Turkish or some other 3rd world country, wine. I was not happy. It permanently ended the relationship. A bottle of Turkish wine. !!!!! The bloody cheek of it !
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That's outrageous!

First time I stayed over a girlfriends house her mum gave me £5 'for the bus'

I wasn't expecting big things come the festive season :mad::mad:
 
davido_labido said:
i dont work in IT at work, but if something goes wrong, il take a quick look before they call in the tech team (i work nights, they dont, so it sometimes saves a guy getting out of bed)
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No offence to you personally but I hate that..

"My printer stopped working so Bob from finance reinstalled it for me, its okay though it was just out of toner"
"Great, I guess he didn't set up all of the custom form types when he reinstalled it..."

"My Internet stopped working for some sites so Fred from marketing changed some of my settings, now I can get to everything"
"You know you're now breaching the Internet policy with potential disciplinary procedure.."

Etc

Two of many reasons why all machines got the lockdown treatment :D

But I'm sure you've got more brain cells than our lot :p
 
Guy at my places chopped a bit of the printer off 'as it didn't fit back together properly' - right pain to find a replacement part as it wasn't really a part you'd expect to need replacing, ever :p
 
We support Citrix receiver and access over IE, that's about as far as we go. If there are any issue like the install being blocked with whatever program/firewall we can advise but not touch other software - We can however set things like trusted sites in IE
 
In my last job I did but I didn't care because it got me out of doing my normal work. Sometimes it was for the business, other times personal. Mostly managers/supervisors but I did the odd thing for work colleges (only ones I knew). Most common was just reinstalling Windows from the restore partition so a few buttons and that was it. I dread to think how many people must discard laptops because they screwed up the active installation not knowing it can be fixed with ease.

In the end I got a bit fed up with it being the 'IT boy' being exploited. Fixing printers was the worst but I made sure I took my time. :p Being 'in' with the managers as well revealed all the naughty things they got up.

From now on though I think it best to feign ignorance on the subject unless I know them well enough.
 
Depends on company policy. Some smaller companies might not really care and I've worked in such a place where someone asked me to take apart their netbook and upgrade it. I did it while my manager sat 2 feet away and obviously heard the entire conversation. Personally I think that sort of thing is a positive to the atmosphere and I'm getting paid anyways, so meh.

I don't really consider myself being exploited if I'm getting paid at my normal rate. I'd happily fix a toaster if I was asked to. Wouldn't do it in personal time, had enough of that years ago with my dad bringing back peoples junk expecting me to fix it.
 
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I've sorted out laptops that my workmates have brought in over lunchtimes (replace screen, fix various other bits etc), but my job isn't desktop support (I'm networks). If they asked the desktop guys to look at their own personal machines, they'd be told to **** off!

I've only helped people in my own team or those I'm socially close to FTR.
 
I'll help any friend or work colleague with whatever comes up as I work nights it can eat into the dead hours.

Built pc's, repaired parts, fixed windows, laptop screens, home networks, upgrades etc. I'll take a look at anything and if I cant do it then no harm saying so. If I think its going to be troublesome then I'll just say.

Everyone is happy.
 
Me and my boss do personal jobs, we charge £20 a throw and divy them out between us, other people in the department don't bother. We have a couple of regulars with children/spouses who seem to spend most of there time trying to infect their laptops.
 
Did it once, replaced a keyboard for a bottle of Jamerson. Bloke was well chuffed, took 15 mins, he didn't know that :P He was quoted some obscene price, i almost felt sorry for him.

Now i'm demoted to Family tech support, which is mostly calls about "where is my pink horse ?" in Farmville
 
wijcc said:
This is to those who work in IT, how do you feel about staff who bring in their or their families/partners personal desktop/laptops for you to fix/look at?
Do you do it fix it or say no when it is people who you are not really friendly with.. only really become friendly when you want something from you?

P.S. they expect you to do it for free in your own time or company time.
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you tell them to take their personal machine and ram it up their gearbox untill they are puking 1024byte sized chunks.
 
I hate doing this, but I'm too nice to say no. Usually it means I have to sacrifice a few lunch hours, as my boss works directly behind me and would go mental if I got caught. People rarely appreciate this, and constantly chase me up. I've been given a crate of beer once, but as I don't drink I wasn't exactly grateful. I should just man up, and tell people where to go.
 
Happens fairly regularly here with staff bringing their own laptops (and occasionally desktops) in, after checking with us first. They all seem to know the score - if we spend any real time on it, we expect compensation. A six pack of beer or a bottle of wine is enough, especially as most problems are fairly easy. They don't pay, we don't look at it again. Simples.
 
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