Windows Rant

[Angus MacGyver]

On Sun, 2010-07-11 at 16:34 +0200, Amedee Van Gasse wrote:
> On 11-07-10 05:15, NoOp wrote:
> > <rant>
> > I stopped supporting Windows for my clients six months ago but still
> > maintain Win for my relatives et al. Performing what would be simple
> > changes in Ubuntu on WinXP brought home why I stopped supporting paying
> > clients.
> 
> Why do you support your relatives for free?
> 
> My niece is with the police but she doesn't let me park on the wrong 
> places for free. I have a nephew who is an engineer at a petrochemical 
> company but he doesn't give me fuel for free. My sister is a nurse at a 
> psychiatric clinic but she doesn't get me free drugs. So I'll ask again, 
> why would my IT services be free?
> 
> If you don't ask money for your services, however low it may be, then at 
> least ask for a service in return. For example if they are a plummer or 
> a construction worker. Because if you don't ask anything in return, they 
> will value your services as worthless. Which makes you worthless. 
> Something that you don't want, I guess.
> On the other hand if you ask something in return then your relatives 
> will respect you.
> 
> Anyway if you help your relatives for free then you are also poisoning 
> the market for other IT services who would otherwise have made a small 
> profit if you weren't available.
> 

Good grief - have you no heart ?
Are people *REALLY* that greedy these days ?
Have we lost compassion for one another, the joy of gifting and most
importantly love ?
I'm appalled and disappointed.


Nothing in your IT services (or plumbing services) that someone provides
makes it illegal, against their business contracts or otherwise
un-ethical to give free services to your family...

Being with the police and turning a blind eye to illegal activity is in
itself illegal (although it does happen) - same goes with a nurse with
dispensing drugs without due process, an engineer in an oil company
doesn't have the authority to give his *COMPANY'S* fuel to you, and
therefore, these are a very poor analogy to IT services.

Plumbing is a more suitable analogy, provided the plumber isn't doing it
on someone else's time (i.e. fixing for free a family problem instead of
what his company expects him to do - doing it his own free time,
depending on his company's contract, is a different matter)


I cannot imagine providing services to family for a fee, be it plumbing,
other DIY, or IT. 
(actual parts are another matter, case by case basis - I've bought
things for my sister-in-law and niece, they simply cannot afford them, I
however can, so it's my pleasure to give them, but I didn't buy my
mother-in-law's Apple as she wanted one)
I'd rather do it *right*, for free than risk some fly-by-night rip them
off.