How's this for stupidity!

[SelbyComputerRepair]

I give my services (almost) free to a local charity. They've just moved into a much bigger shop and I did the networking on 5 computers and 2 phone systems.

They use a separate company for the till systems and occasionally the "till guy" as he's known to the charity staff remotes in to do a bit of jiggery pokery.

I get a call, "one of the computers is offline". So I turned up and investigated. The offending computer was set to a static ip address and the others were dynamic. I didn't set it up this way so I assumed "till guy" had remoted in and set it this way.

However, I quickly realised what must have gone on.

"till guy" remotes in and sets the computer to ask for xx.xx.x.50 as a static ip address. Then without even pinging the network for said ip address just in case the router had given it to another computer, he hits ok.

He's then obviously kicked off his remote connection as the computers now offline (as another machine has xx.xx.x.50 and he has no way to remote back in to fix it.

Does he phone the shop and say "hi, just dropped an enormous one, anyone there familiar with ip addresses and setting static ip's? No? Oh, then you might have to call someone out"

No he doesn't, he says absolutely nothing and abandons whatever he was doing, and then the staff come in, computers offline and I get the call.

Worst thing for me here is they get paid good money for this system, I do my bit for charity for next to nothing. Next time someone from his company remotes in, all will be well and he probably gets the credit.

 

[coffee]

Real nice guy. Does he also work for free? If not, I wonder how the charity can afford to pay him? Oh, thats right - by not paying you

 

[Metanis]

The whole concept of charity work is bogus if you are in business. It's OK to give away "personal" time. Get in the habit of donating time outside of your normal business hours. Then it will be self-regulating.

 

[coffee]

Go to your local charity and check out what they want for shirts and pants. Places like 'Goodwill'. Youll notice that they are pretty much as expensive as walmart. Where does that money go? Go look out in the employee parking lot and see what type of cars are sitting in there.

I do not donate to charities. Its like the "Homes for Humanity" deal. You spend a lot of time fixing up a house to have some people move in and destroy it.

The only people I am charitable to are family and paying customers.

Edit: Technibblers too.

 

[SelbyComputerRepair]

Yeah I can see all your points about charities etc but this is a local lady, all staff are volunteers and the lady who runs it takes nothing.

I'm not religious or even that generous with my time but I just felt it was the right thing to do. Hopefully karma will reward me with a nice lottery win. Although if karma rewards me when I'm 80 karma can take it and shove it. I want it now!

Actually it's not the first time this company has done something like this recently. They installed their own modem/router and connected it to the till and then finished. No internet connection at all.

The best of it was, the existing crappy router supplied by the broadband company was sat next to the router he installed and was still plugged in and online when I got the call to say "there's no internet".

"till guy" was stood facing the modem/router and still failed to plug it in correctly.

 

[seedubya]

I do not donate to charities.

Luckily, not everyone decides to do this. One of my daughter's friends is having to fly back and forth to a hospital in TX, she has a really rare form of lukaemia for which there is no treatment anywhere else in the world. Without charity she'd be dead......

 

[coffee]

Luckily, not everyone decides to do this. One of my daughter's friends is having to fly back and forth to a hospital in TX, she has a really rare form of lukaemia for which there is no treatment anywhere else in the world. Without charity she'd be dead......

Lets make a correction. I do not donate services. I have donated lots of money to things like this. Its my services that I do not donate.

I donate to the Epilepsy Foundation, UofM Hospital and some local Boy Scouts Organizations.
Hopefully that clears things up.

 

[seedubya]

Lets make a correction. I do not donate services. I have donated lots of money to things like this. Its my services that I do not donate.

I donate to the Epilepsy Foundation, UofM Hospital and some local Boy Scouts Organizations.
Hopefully that clears things up.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

 

[coffee]

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Its probably me. I have been up late working on a server. Getting pretty tierd. Went to bed at 2am.

 

[trevm999]

Lets make a correction. I do not donate services. I have donated lots of money to things like this. Its my services that I do not donate.

Good clarification. It is probably a good policy not to donate services as a business.

 

[inetuk]

We service a number of local and national charities, and what we do is supply parts at cost and with labour charges give a discount of between 10 - 25% off the invoice. We also supply for free older PC's or laptops as donated by other clients, but we do charge either the charity or the donating company a reuse fee of £25 to cover supplying Windows under the refurb program and to cover fuel collecting/delivering said PC/Laptop. We have a number of charities as MSP clients.

 

[frase]

If someone meddles with devices..charge service

 

[dsxtech]

I agree with frase, if someone else is making a mess, it shouldn't be covered by you for free. You should get paid and the charity should go after the "till guy" to cover the costs of "his" mistakes...

 

[gikstar]

I agree with frase, if someone else is making a mess, it shouldn't be covered by you for free. You should get paid and the charity should go after the "till guy" to cover the costs of "his" mistakes...

Or have the Charity send your bill to the 'till' guy's company.
I would make out a bill listing all of their mistakes and your resolutions so that the 'till' guys company knows the quality of their employees work

 

[CTL]

I do tons of research before I donate 'My Time" to a charity, non profit, not for profit etc.. Early on I was doing alot of work for this "charity" and come to find out that everyone working there was getting paid big-time. All driving nice cars, catered lunch everyday. Magically there was no money ever for computers or i.t. services. At some point a donor started paying me to help them, when I stopped responding to the charity's calls. He has been a personally client ever since, even though I don't do work for the charity anymore.

Most of the big national\global charity bring in big dollars. If you search the net you will see many news story's on the manager's of these charity's making multiple six figures plus.

Note: Time is money. Sometimes I have had a non profit give me some publicity in exchange for my time. Something like run an Ad thanking my company for donating computers etc..
Note: I am not saying all charity's are bad. I help when I really see or feel the need too.

 

[Anson]

There was this shady charity server not to far from me that would have teens volunteering their time and all the "adults" were making loads of money off of the. They were thinking they were doing a good deed but the people running the business were working them live slaves. People like this give charities a bad name.

 

[coffee]

Every now and again the "Brother Hood of Firefighters" calls me. Its a local thing. They are asking for donations. I asked them what are the donations for? They told me that the money goes to widows of firefighters, To help them get by. I then asked "Dont they have insurance?". He replied, "Yes they do but it doesnt cover everything". I said, "Well, Perhaps the city should be looking at fixing their insurance problem?". He replied, "Ok, But in the mean time your donation would be appreciated". I replied " I tell you what, Why dont you give me the name of one of these widows and I will write out a check right now and mail it to them". He replied, "Thats not how it works". I ended the conversation "Well, I dont know about you but that is exactly how it works here".

I really havent heard from them in some time now. Apparently these widows have remarried or something.

 

[Anson]

Every now and again the "Brother Hood of Firefighters" calls me. Its a local thing. They are asking for donations. I asked them what are the donations for? They told me that the money goes to widows of firefighters, To help them get by. I then asked "Dont they have insurance?". He replied, "Yes they do but it doesnt cover everything". I said, "Well, Perhaps the city should be looking at fixing their insurance problem?". He replied, "Ok, But in the mean time your donation would be appreciated". I replied " I tell you what, Why dont you give me the name of one of these widows and I will write out a check right now and mail it to them". He replied, "Thats not how it works". I ended the conversation "Well, I dont know about you but that is exactly how it works here".

I really havent heard from them in some time now. Apparently these widows have remarried or something.

Funny thing is, it is probably a scam and the money is going to unemployed men. lol

 

[coffee]

Funny thing is, it is probably a scam and the money is going to unemployed men. lol

I dont think so, Because they stand out at 4 way stops trying to collect money too at certain times of the year. Its really weird, I would not have them doing this as they work hard enough with their jobs. The local city should solve the problem. But hey, Thats just me..

 

[TenYardFight]

Good clarification. It is probably a good policy not to donate services as a business.

Agreed, I find it much more effective to charge full price for services and donate cash to them and their causes. The value of our services is not undermined and we can still help the cause.

They will refer business and the referrals will expect to pay full price!