What Computer Repairs / IT Requests Do You Dislike Most?

timeclocks
I guess I like most anything mechanical. That was where I started my journey in life.

My first office machine repair job was as a "typewriter repairman." I started working on the old Manual Remington, Underwood and Royal typewriters. So I am still a whiz with most mechanical equipment - even in my old age. I moved on into electric typewriters and eventually into computers, etc. Been a long road for me.

You youngsters don't know what you've missed over the years. The evolution of the equipment I've seen has been quite staggering AND it's still moving forward. Anyone who thinks they know it all should get out of the business NOW!
 
Coming from an old-school tech (me) - most printers are very easy. However, the super-cheap ink jet based printer is not worth the time or effort to fix. That's why the manufacturers sell them so cheap so they will need to be replaced sooner than later. And let's not talk about ink prices (that's the inky grail for the manufacturers.)

That's 99% of what people bring in and that's what I hate the most because it is just a waste of time. Then they want to compound the problem by thinking new ink will solve the issue and spend $90 on ink so it's now a waste of time and money.
 
That's 99% of what people bring in and that's what I hate the most because it is just a waste of time. Then they want to compound the problem by thinking new ink will solve the issue and spend $90 on ink so it's now a waste of time and money.
You need to inform your customers up front (if possible) to NOT do so.

This is on reason we carry Color Laser printers (used, not new) so that we can possibly sway them over to laser printing. Yes up front costs (color toner carts) may seem high, but in the long run the printer will last longer, produce much better prints and the customer will be happier for making the switch. The only downside that I've come across is that most customers want to be able to print via wireless connection to their printer(s) and most used laser printers do not have that feature. But it can be done (on a used unit) - just requires a bit more hardware.
 
Love: Any remote/unattended work ... especially on complex server systems. The more difficult, the better.

Hate: Having to go to site or doing any work that requires speaking to non-technical people.
This. When the client starts the conversation with "I'm stupid about computers" I know I will have a long day.
 
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My nightmare? - Migrate an office full of 10 year old overflowing POP3 mail accounts to new IMAP accounts. Oh - and do it over slow DSL (that is still too common rural here). Even "fast" cable here is only 4Mbs up.
 
Technical work I hate: Migrating emails or fixing email client issues for residential customers. They have no idea what they're doing so can't tell me how they want it set up, which means whatever way I do it is wrong. I've given a couple customers @callthatgirl's info when I wasn't in the mood :) (with glowing reviews next time I see them btw!).

I love soldering and troubleshooting circuits though. Don't get to do enough of it sadly. Really, any work I can do with minimal customer interaction is great!
 
This will sound funny to some, but the quick jobs I do are my least favorite. Not only for billable reasons but there is no joy to them for me. I get almost giddy when I see a hot mess of 20 problems come into my queue. More money of course but more I get to have fun with. I'm at that point when people say "I have a lot of problems" I say "Tell me more..." LOL!

But I do have dislikes..
  • Outlook 2016
  • Installation issues with MS products
 
Don't mind working on printers but they are a waste of our time because 9 out of 10 that are booked in don't proceed with any repair.

You can pick up a half decent AIO printer for £40-50 so anything other than a quick fix just isn't economical.
 
Perhaps it's a hazard specific to data recovery, but I really hate when customers keep nagging about how to re-integrate their recovered data into their programs. My paperwork they fill out specifically spells out that re-integrating recovered data back into their programs is not part of our service, but that doesn't stop nearly every customer from trying to get us to help with this.

If it's just showing them where to find their PST file and open it up in Outlook, I'll give them a quick hand. But I can't stand when it's some unusual software specific to their business and they want me to research it for them and figure out how to migrate the old data. Feels like every day I've got someone nagging me to do this for them. They think that because they just paid $300-500 for recovery they are suddenly entitled to a few extra hours of our time. It's why I can offer 20% off to re-sellers. Then they get to be nagged and can just bill the customer for the time doing this work. Less nagging means I get more work done each day.
 
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