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When I think of all the technical skills I've acquired through the years, I am reminded of the quote in the Spiderman movie - "This is my gift. This is my curse." I know exactly what Peter Parker was talking about. It seems that nobody really wants to talk to me anymore unless they need some computer-related help. It doesn't matter if it 7:30 AM or Midnight, or if I haven't talked to the person in months; I will always be there to help out with whatever crazy computer problem you may have.
Don't believe me? Let's look at the past month:
Tamir, a brotherly friend of mine living in Jacksonville, calls me a few days ago. I haven't talked to Tamir since March. He wants to know how he can position an image precisely behind some text centered in an HTML page using a piece of crap HTML editor (cough - Frontpage). I mention the fact that we haven't talked since March and he says, "Oh, you want that relationship thing, huh?"
Bob, who I haven't seen or talked to in four weeks, calls me with some Excel question. He says that I can save him "two hours", if I can figure this out for him. I take five minutes from my dinner and walk him through some conditional equations in Excel. When we're done, he says, "Great! Bye." Click.
"Good to talk to you too, Bob."
The revealing part
I think the most revealing of all this month's calls came from my favorite client. One Thursday night at 11:30 PM, I am sprung out of bed by the ringing of the phone. It is my favorite client trying to fix some problem he's created in a shopping cart. It is very important that he get this done ASAP. I put my pants on, boot up my computer, and start digging through his code to figure out the problem.
I figure that instead of explaining how to fix it, I could save us both time and just fix it myself. After about a half hour, I send him a fix for the problem along with a brief explanation on the problem. I turn off my machine and go back to bed.
Five minutes later, the phone rings.
Now the wife is starting to get upset. I pick up and my favorite client says "It doesn't work."
I reply with, "Alright, this is starting to get obnoxious."
He says, "That's what you get for making friends with your clients."
That's when it hit me! "Friends" equals free 24/7 technical support. Funny though, these friends only appear when they need help. I feel like I'm in high school trying to make buddies with the cool kids by letting them play with my Nintendo.
Well, no more! I have my pride and I need my uninterrupted sleep. Scott's Technical Support is now officially closed.
The only people who can still call for tech support are Bestfriendsean and my mutha since they have yet to do so.
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