Casual Conversation

Yep.

I have been expected to solve tech problems constantly, constantly blamed for when further problems arise due to others undoing what I fixed or not following my instructions, expected to undertake large tech oriented projects or research that take up significant amounts of my time, for no benefit to myself.

And when I am unavailable for whatever reason, my family members and friends would pay an hourly wage to other tech savvy family members or friends to do what I was negged into doing for free... and of course they would usually do it in a far sloppier, less efficient, more expensive way or even fail completely, yet still be paid.

... along with many other instances like this, I eventually realized that basically everyone I used to know was actually a gaslighting, narcissistic, exploitative piece of shit with insanely hypocritical double standards, and just fucking ghosted everyone and moved halfway across the country.

Woops!

Turns out I have CPTSD!

I'm petty and absolutely used this among other reasons to move away from home as far as I could. So much happier knowing I'm too far away to be bothered. It still sucks when I go home and get the same requests.

Had this problem a while ago,y solution was either straight up tell them no, or to say you will do it for a fee and say I didn't get get all this information for free, it has cost me a lot to learn all this information and then to point out my degree.

If they didn't like it. That's not really my problem. I do not ow them my skills and expertise just because I know them.

I would help the ones I know wouldn't mind if I just said no, and ones that I know that if I helped them once doesn't mean I always will.

Consent is important and if they can't understand what no is and that consent can be taken away, then they don't really deserve the help I can give them.

My friends help me with stuff that I need help with, too. I'm the tech person and the person to help with organization. They're the people with good backs!

Now if I do work for hours on something they compensate me more but we're pretty chill.

Boundaries are important!

"Oh, I wish I could help, but I don't know anything about that. That's not my area of expertise."

Get good at variations of that theme or you will be miserable. That or start a side business where you charge for your services.

My dad tried to get me to fly out to his place in California to fix his printer issues once. I live quite a few states away. He didn't even offer to pay or anything, he just was like "you haven't visited in a while and I really need your help, please come soon." I told him to call the geek squad.

When people act like children, treat them as such. Patronize them and berate them while explaining how computers work on the most fundamental level. If they have the gall to talk back and insist they are not a child, then leave them high and dry to deal with their issues. Ideally you leave the fix halfway finished when this happens.

If they get mad continue telling them that they're stupid for not learning how to use a machine a 10 year old child can use and do not treat them like adults until they begin to act like them.

Same goes for handyman or carpenter.

People feel entitled to support because there's no financial outlay, it's "free". Also, "it'll just take a minute".

The ideal situation is to do the work and negotiate their help in return. "Be glad to help! And you can do $X for me sometime!" Cool thing about that is soliciting help paradoxically makes people like you more. Do the job, then ask them for help. And follow up on that ask or you will be taken advantage of!

Related:

“He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged”.

The Benjamin Franklin effect is the brain's effort to resolve the cognitive dissonance we experience when we do a favor for someone we don't particularly like. In order to rationalize our behaviour, we convince ourselves that we must like the person otherwise we would never have done them the favor.

Not 100% agreed with that last quote as it works for people you actually like. But that's the general idea.

Years and years ago, I was waiting in the lobby of a dealership while they did something to my car. (It was a complex situation. I wouldn't normally go to a dealership for anything if I could avoid it.) This was before cell phones were, like, decent, so for entertainment I was watching the lobby TV. They had on some trivia / jeopardy show, no idea which one.

One of the questions in the show was "what industry lies to their family the most about what they do?" Jokingly, I muttered to myself (paraphrased) "probably help desk / IT support." The answer was "IT support." I had to fight to hold in my laughter.

Bonus fact: At the time, I worked at a help desk as a temp. While I was waiting for my car, the recruiter who employed me called me to ask me to convince another prospective employee that the recruiter was on the level and that the job was worthwhile. I couldn't think of a single positive thing to say on the call. (I'm still in IT but no longer help desk and I'm much happier.)

Moving to another country helped to remedy this. I highly recommend it. It still won't stop your hopeless mother-in-law from constantly dropping hints that she's having technical problems on PC or Android whenever you're around, just to find out 100% of the time that it's always something beyond your ability to help (ie: the Girl Guides website is absolute cancer, her printer software appears to be the womb from which all malware is produced, or she requires administrative support on six different levels after somehow locking herself out of her account, her business email on outlook, her personal email, and her recovery email due to failing to properly follow the authentication instructions for each, and you're honestly just impressed that a person could get themselves this deep in a hole).

My family have always been cool about it and willing to work around my schedule when they needed something. Usually they return the favor with some cash or baked goods even though I've never asked for payment.

My mom isn’t into tech at all, so she has no real tech that needs supporting aside from her TV.

My dad, on the other hand… he’s in his mid-80s, and sliding into Dementia, so I have to be careful and break instructions down into the simplest and easiest-to-remember form as possible. But even with his problems he still takes the time out to google his own issues, find solutions, and if those don’t work he comes to me with his entire workflow for me to look over to see where he went wrong. And then he still tries to absorb what I’ve done to help him.

The dude is 85, with a 5th grade education, suffering from dementia, and he still does better with “struggling with tech” than a majority of people out there.

I am definitely seeing a time when he starts shutting down certain programs for the last time, and eventually even the entire computer, but damn I’m proud of the old fossil.

I'm vaguely the tech gal for my aunt, but she never wants anything complicated, it's not like I'm capable of a lot, but she never demands it.

It stopped when I started asking for 50€ per hour. It was 20 years ago.

Been a engineer for more than 15 years.

My secret to avoiding this? Always act like you're the stupidest in the room. Not full blown, but like pretty high level dumb.

• Someone once asked me how to fix their windows. No idea - I only use Linux.

• My favorite Linux flavor? Uh I dunno... The one that Tim Apple makes!

• So I know how to use terminals? Not really, I just use the GUI, which stands for General User Interactions.

• How do I get this far and write code? Well I type things into google.com and then copy and paste code and it just works.

• But don't I need a degree? Nah. I was mostly doing drugs and alcohol and cheated my way up.

• Aren't I speaking at tech conferences? Nah. I just type things into google.com slash Gemini and read what the AI, which stands for Advanced Intelligence, says.

And I Never have to fix a god damn thing.

You have a truck, help me move. Same thing.