Casual Conversation

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.

Physical therapy - i tell everyone to put ice in it and take Aleve for 3 days if it doesn't interfere with your meds.

I have a friend that's a doc. We're not supposed to tell people because they will to spend all night talking to her about their medical problems.

It's the same with plumbers, accountants, garage door repairers, mechanics, nurses, ... everyone.

We all think, "why does everyone want my help for free?" but we've all asked someone with a skill for advice.

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, her recovery email, and some weird matrix of temporary guiding logins/passwords that she swears were properly written down (or are an old printed email containing a long, convoluted link that has long since expired), and you're honestly just impressed that a person could get themselves this deep in a hole).

Ya and fuck printers. Happy Solstice.

I came out the otherside by becoming a solutions architect. Now when people ask for my help I say things like "I know how to do that at enterprise scale. Here's the $10k/month cloud solution."

People don't ask as much anymore.

Yeah, my parents don't seem to understand that this is actually work. To them, I'm just sitting there, having a bit of a chat with them. I now work in the field and they have become somewhat more sympathetic after I told them that this is basically another workday for me, when they call me to come on a Saturday or Sunday. Like, yeah, I will get around to it, but I am often exhausted from work, which does make it a pretty big ask for me to continue working on the weekend.

I’d say it’s a pretty general phenomenon. Expertise and entitled consumption of it as a service. Even in a professional setting, with a service/support dynamic, it can be abused through entitlement pretty often.

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.

No one wants to ask a business analyst questions, because I just tell them what they are doing wrong and how to fix it

Any occupation with significant technical skill gets this treatment, as do any occupations with any significant creative component.

So yes, if you're in tech you get people begging you to work for free among your circle of family and friends. Same if you're a doctor. A lawyer. An artist. A musician. Etc. etc. etc.

Smart people making use of such talents will pay, not necessarily in money but in other forms of currency ranging from "a six-pack" through trades of labour ("let me do your dishes while you look at my laptop") through sometimes less tangible things like introducing you to their own circle of friends and such giving you an opportunity to broaden your network.

Dumb people demand aid and then get offended if you say "no".

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.

When I was doing admin work my rule was I would help immediate family and my grandparents for free, but quoted a price to everyone else. I figure my parents deserve it since I wouldn’t be “good at computers” without them and my grandmother always made dinner for me when I stopped by to help. Most of my friends we exchange favors (I’ll help fix their pc they help move appliances into my kitchen) and co workers get a straight bill (usually the eff you price to boot). It’s amazing how fast folks stop asking.

Related, I’m always oddly busy when folks need my pickup “to just move a thing, it’ll only take like 30 mins”.

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.

A lot of people struggle to internalise how capitalism works, because it's unnatural. In a natural communist society, you ask your friends and family for help with the things they're good at, and they help you. But under capitalism, you need to sell your limited time and energy for money in order to survive, so you can't afford to help your friends and family for free. This is confusing to many people, because their instincts are telling them to act like communists, the way human beings are supposed to.

You can solve this problem by joining the communist revolution and restoring our economy to its natural state.

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.)

Entitled people might be vulturing you because you can help them with "tech stuff", but if you didn't, they'd either vulture you for something else or outright ignore you. Those people are best avoided.

EDIT: just to be clear.

I'm not opposed to help people out, as long as the other side would help me out if asked to. A great example of that are my front neighbours: sure, they keep asking me for computer help, but I'm happy to do it - because when I need their help I know that I can count on them. (Guess who took care of my cats while I was travelling?)

The problem that I see are the entitled ones; those are the ones who get all pissy when you don't help them, because they behave like everyone else was born to serve them. Those people are best avoided as much as you can.

I stopped getting asked for help when I switched to Linux.