Work as a tech

I work two tech jobs in Boston -- one as telephone tech for a company (my day job) and at night for myself as The Computer Valet.

My goal is to make The Computer Valet my full-time job. Essentially, it's a personalized PC-repair shop. I fix errors, build PCs, etc.

My day job is telephone technical support for a company that builds hardware and develops software for the printing industry. Some of it is standard stuff -- NT networking, PC hardware, Windows 2000, some UNIX networking, etc.

I don't particuarly care for telephone technical support. It's not that difficult, but most of the hard calls can be attributed to the caller not understanding that they are my eyes and ears. One step unstated turns out to be the card that makes the house fall, if you know what I mean.

I visit people as the Valet.

-Mike...

One problem is that while there are very good techs out there there's also some pretty pathetic techs who can get away with doing a poor job because the people who hire them never realizes they're doing a poor job. I mean it's not really a question of can they fix a problem, its whether or not they can fix a problem correctly, quickly, and cheaply. It's not hard to get a tech job, but it's hard to do the job well, but since good techs are the only people who actually can tell when someone's doing a good job it really doesn't matter what kind of job you can do because as the people who actually do the hireing can't really tell. For example, my friend's parents have this one guy do all their computer work and don't realize that the guy sucks at his job. He puts the wrong bios chips in mother boards, he has piles of cds in his house that get scratched up by his cats, he gives his customers copies of copies of windows, and he has just recently convinced my friend's mom that by adjusting a few options she now connects to the internet at 115k (on a 56k modem in an area where connections never exceed 28k). The guy's an idiot and they have no idea and it's that kind of crap that steams me and others who actually know about tech stuff. But anyway, its 3 am and I should probably wrap up this rant.

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Originally posted by freddy
ah , well new job ,it,s killing me ,,,,,,,,,in charge of a "off-licence" ,,,,,,i think u call um drug stores ,,,,2pm - 10.30pm ,,,wines bears cigarettes ,,,toffees , about 25% above minimum wage ,would,nt be so bad , apart from kids buying there penny toffees (singularly) with £5 notes ,, but get a lie in (or tommy-puter work ) in the mornings ,,,,wife (as of 4mths) is,nt happy ,,,,I need a new car ,,and bills keep piling up .

Its all dog eat dog in the UK ,,,,u try to do an honest job and charge an honest fee ,,,,but some $ick head will under price u ,,,,then someone will underprice him ,,,etc etc ,,,,and you feel like a monkey , getting paid peanuts.

PS the boss (at work) ,known him a long time ,,,lends me his spare car (and fuel) ,,,,untill i,m sorted

11.50pm now , just had my tea (dinner) ,,,and am drinking a glass (bottle) of paul masson , califonian red wine , knowing that I can relax till about 10.30 - 11.00 am tommorrow.

but at least a wage packet ,,,,,,,,,


FtF

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See, if you get it right, you get the evening shifts, and don't have to get up before lunch :D

one and a bit weeks now, having today off, worked sat 7am - 10.30 pm ,and sunday 2pm - 10 pm .

glad to say I bought a "fresh" car ,,a little peugeot 205 (diesel) ,,,cost over £150 to get thru MOT ,,,but sorted now.

still got a nice trickle of repetition work (tommy puters) and get them done in the mornings ,,,

for a change i am walking around with some money in my pocket,

things are looking up, - i,m going to let the monkeys work for the peanuts ,,undercutting each other .....the people who want quality work still come back to me.

I LIKE a wage Pkt.


freddy

As Yoda would say, "Doomed we are in the corporate envirnment." As a techie you, like all of us, are doomed due to your understanding of technical matters. The upper eschelon don't understand AND DON"T WANT TO UNDERSTAND the details of what we do. As a manager, it is their job to see "The Big Picture" and not to get caught-up in details. Unfortunately, actually retrieving email, to them, is a detail. I have sat and explained things in simple terms only to have managers look dumbly at me and say "Now in english, please." It is the job of the CIO to truly interface with upper management and translate what the technical info means into what the management can understand. AND none of this will EVER change! Its not that they are stupid its just that they have different pressures to deal with. Try understanding the whimseys of the stock market some time and you'll see what they are up against.