An Open Letter To Dad (And Others)…

• ...Regarding Personal Tech Support

Dad (and other relatives and friends),

I love you and I appreciate you raising me and all, and I think it's wonderful that you're learning to use the computer. Frankly you're doing an excellent job. I am not being sarcastic, I'm extremely proud of you and how much you've learned.

However...

I will personally defenestrate you if you don't change your ways when it comes how you behave when you need tech-support. Let me be reiterate: You helped me to grow up into the man I am, and I appreciate it and am willing... no, happy to help you, but we need to establish some ground rules:

1. You must NEVER use the phrase "I just have an easy question..." ever again. Due to Pavlovian conditioning by you, every time I hear you utter this phrase, I break out into a cold sweat. The last time you said it, it was followed by "...I want to write a database in Access that can manage all my finances, and can pull stock quotes off of the Internet." You're in no position to judge how easy a question is.
   
2. Just like all those years when I didn't want to learn my multiplication tables because I “could just look it up or use a calculator” and you made me learn 'em anyway, because I'd need it later, yes, sometimes I am going to "pull rank" on you and make you learn the theory of something rather than just telling you what buttons to push. You know more about computers than any three of your friends because of this, you even brag about it. So why fight every time this comes up?
   
3. This one's important. When I'm giving you step-by-step instructions, DO NOT SECOND-GUESS ME AND RUSH AHEAD. And if you do, TELL ME!
   
4. Related to #3: If I tell you something's there, it is. I rarely say this, but when I do, I mean it. Trust me. If I say, "Dad, you're in Word, right? Look at the upper left-hand corner: There's a menu choice labeled 'File'," it's there. A perfectly acceptable alternative to "It's not there" is "I don't see it".
   
5. You've stopped debating with me, and I appreciate that. It was annoying to have you argue that "your friend" or "an article" said to do it another way. As I said: if you prefer to have "your friend" or "an article" help you, you won't hurt my feelings. Anyway, you've stopped doing this and I appreciate it.
   
6. Please quit buying Crapware™ that's in the 12-for-a-Dollar bin and then expect me to be able to figure out why it won't install properly or unravel what it did to your autoexec.bat or unsnarl your file associations or undo other damage. If it's in the junk bin, it usually because it's junk. Oh, and a hint: if the product says it "requires a 386 processor and Windows 3.1" it's probably not going to work real well on your P4 2.8GHz, Win2000 system.
   
7. I'm not trying to be stubborn when I tell you I don't know the exact solution to a specific problem with a particular application. While it's flattering, I really don't know every detail of every piece of software ever written. Especially as relates to #6. I can give general advice, but that's about it.
   
8. Use your eyes and brain a bit more. If I tell you to click on the "Close" button of the request box, and the actual word used is "Exit", either ask or just do it yourself. This is not incompatible with #4. And telling me it is will just frustrate both of us.
   
9. This one's not major, but it drives me nuts: You have a system that I envy. It's spectacular. Except it has 256 megs of ram. The answer to every problem your system encounters isn't that you need more ram. (But if you want to buy more memory for both of us, I won't stop you.)
   
10. Last one: next time you have a good idea like "Making sure that your free space is spread out evenly" by moving some of the folders in your C:\Windows directory to your D: drive, or saving space by deleting folders for programs you're not using anymore with Windows Explorer rather than uninstalling them, check with me first. Please?

Once again: I love you, Dad (and most of my other friends and relatives), I'm happy to help you but... if you follow these rules we'll all be a lot happier.

:m: Peace.