I should have seen it comeing -- but wait, i did.
A local employment agency called my shop to set up some on-sight service. "Our computers are acting funny, and they need to be formatted and have Windows 95 reinstalled" was the plan.
Yesterday, I arrived on sight with tools in hand, ready to take care of the problem -- only thing was, there was no problem. Windows was functioning perfectly on both computers. Their network was fully functional, their special accounting software -- everything. The only *real* problem was the double click speed for the mouse was turned all the way up on one computer, and nobody could start any programs on the desktop. I worked for about an hour trying to find any problems, and asked an employee at the agency to try and produce some problems -- but nothing went wrong. As I left, I explained to the receptionist (only employee present at the time) that I didn't feel that a reformat/reinstall was necessary, but that I would do one if she incisted, or return on-site within 30 days for free if any problems did arise.
Twenty minutes after I returned to my shop, I received a wonderful phone call from "the boss." You can imagine the quality conversation we had. She was irate! I could hardly say a word for the first five minutes of the conversation. She went on about how I was asked to do a job, and was going to charge for not doing it. After she calmed down a little bit, we began to discuss her problems, and some possible solutions. It turns out that her computers had a previous owner, and that there were still about 200 saved documents from that previous owner still on the hard drive. She wanted these documents, along with any un-necessary programs to be removed. In her own words, she wanted a "clean slate." She argued that her fancy KCML accounting program was malfunctioning, and that a format was necessairy to fix it. I mentioned that since this KCML program of hers was DOS based, a reinstall of windows would have no impact on it's performance or stability. She still insisted. Deep down inside, I wanted to delete the saved documents and uninstall the programs, but even more that that, I didn't want to argue. I agreed to return on-site the next morning and reformat/reinstall, and waive off one hour from the bill.
The morning I arrived, and prepared for my work. Before proceeding, I made absolutely sure that everyone understood that what I was about to do would destroy EVERYTHING on the hard drive. ANY PROGRAM OR DATA NOT BACKED UP WOULD BE GONE FOREVER. They reassured me that they understood, and had made backups, and had all the original disks; and asked me to get on with it. It was probably the easiest reinstall that I have ever done. It went perfectly, no problems at all. I got windows up and running, all the drivers taken care of, reinstalled their programs, and then did the same to their other computer. (actually, I cut a corner, and just ghosted the drive over, so the second computer took less than 10 minutes.) I asked the receptionists (once again, the boss was out) to look over the computers and make sure everything was there, said goodbye, and left.
Wouldn't you know it? About an hour after I got back to the shop, I got another call. "The boss" again. "I've got a question about the work you did on our computers" she asked. "The KCML is still on there, Right?"
"No" I explained "your installation disk was corrupt. I told you this yesterday, but you still wanted me to procede, even though I wouldn't be able to reinstall."
"Okay, I was just asking."
Why did I have a feeling I would hear from her again? Sure enough, about an hour later she called (now it gets interesting) "Hi, can you get back our KCML program, since it is a DOS program, and you only reinstalled windows?"
"No, like I said, everything on the hard drive would be gone forever."
"But you said that reformatting and reinstalling Windows wouldn't affect our KCML program."
What I told her was that I didn't think that reinstalling windows would fix problems related to her DOS based KCML program, and that the problems were likely to be internal to the program. I guess she didn't understand the meaning of losing EVERYTHING on her hard drive.
We argued back and forth about whether I told her that formatting wouldn't affect DOS programs until we came to the conclusion that it didn't matter what I told her, because KCML was gone, and the only way to get it back was to obtain a new installation floppy. She claimed that the only way this program could be reinstalled was if someone drove here (Caldwell, ID) from their corporate offices in Seattle and installed it themselves. It would serve 'em right. They called me and asked me to fix a problem, but not to use any of my expertice. I got chewed out for not doing it their way, then got chewed out for doing exactly what they asked. Go figure.
And to think -- I threw in a Y2K check for free. (poor saps aren't fully compliant . . . 198 days to revenge https://forums.windrivers.com/images.../2000/09/1.gif )
[This message has been edited by rusabus (edited June 19, 1999).]
[This message has been edited by rusabus (edited June 19, 1999).]
