Is it really worth it ? is the money you get worth the time and effort needed ?

Her-indoor's has been on at me for a while to start doing this so that we can have a bit of extra cash, she wants me to get business card's made up and put flyer's on the cars around our town. She wants me to do this and if I get enough business I could give up work and do it full time and maybe in the future open a shop and maybe the son's could work with me for a bit of pocket money. I work for a computer services company doing desktop support so this means "that I know how to fix them and I need something to keep my mind active as work isn't too busy so my brain is turning to mush"
If this business goes ok I could then get the son's to work full time with me in my shop and make a bit of money and also when the time comes I can retire and leave the son's running the business and then I will have something to pass on when the time comes for me to leave this planet.

She is disabled and I work (go in) fulltime and when I come home I look after her and the 2 kids and the 4 dogs and the house but apparently I will have the time to fix computer's after everyone is asleep and I am sitting "doing nothing" in the evening's (usually after 11pm if I have my dinner early) and the weekend's

She has it all worked out but really has no idea what she is talking about so I will get the business card's made up and see what happens, probably not too much but at least I will try and hopefully keep her quiet for a while.

Sorry but this seem's to have turned into a bit of a rant / vent but back to original point, is it really worth while doing homer's ???

windyboy

 

I do the occasional homer (17 years pulling laptops, desktops and software apart and fixing them), there just isnt enough work around to make it a full time job though, add in there that most of your work will involve stupid people who will blame any non related fault in the following 2 years on you. Buying parts can be a pain too as some folks wont pay up front neither until their machine is seen to be working.

If I was you, id take a run down to the citizens advice and make sure you are claiming everything you are entitled to for the wifes disability, family allowances etc. you could end up being better off without having to do the legwork.

 

PEBKAC can be an earnings loser. IMO. Unless you strictly charge by the hour waiting for a Pentium III to fully reinstall XP and all its updates over a 0.5Mb internet connection, where the costs will easily spiral higher than it is to buy a new system (I did this and purchased a new Lonovo from pi**y world before christmas for just £280! http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/lenovo...90946-pdt.html ).

The result is you can't charge what you should. Most people want it done for free or for under £100.....even if it takes over 4hours and not forgetting fuel costs (and further wear and tear costs on teh car, plus overheads on advertising, phone etc). Many will see that half your time is spent sitting on your **** waiting for something to reinstall or copy something and then take big exception that they should pay for the 'idle' time where you are sat waiting for a computer to finish doing its thing.

Then we have the phone calls....many people want it fixed over the phone...for free. You try and charge for phone call time and they get arsey about it...even when told up front (actually more so).

Hardware problems are another ****...if what you supply is faulty you bear the brunt whilst you have to wait for several weeks for the RMA to be authorised and supplier to refund you.....LESS the labour and travelling costs you waste having to fit the part, diagnose it as faulty, and replace it. Leaving you out of pocket.


I still offer a strict drop-in service for some of our respected clients, as well as some remote desktop help etc. But not the stupid/cheapskate ones, and I do zero phone/email/training support.

Now the latter can be a good earner. We do Sage training, and its does OK. But I don't do it as I just don't have the patience.

 

Which is why I will not do it even for mates now.

If they are too dumb to use a PC I send them to the Apple store

 

None of my friends are dumb but that's what I do, and now I never have to fix Windows machines. Friends make Friends buy Apple.

 

Friends and family ARE the worst......

"You're good with computers aren't you?"

Me: "NO!"

I've been doing free IT services for the family business next door for the past eight years. Actually I'm on strike at the moment though....

Masterblaster: "Embargo ON"... "Who run the interweb?"

Family fun

 

Ask her to read these threads link1, link2, link3, link4 and then come up with another business plan.

I would think that as Windows becomes more reliable, and with the introduction of plug and play and USB everything that repair opportunities have diminished. That is balanced by the explosion of idiot users, but their problems are a lot harder to sort out.

I would have thought that some sort of phone support might give more opportunities in the current climate. Our local PC shop makes more money by selling printer cartridges than repairing pc's.

 

+1, difficult to see how this can be made to pay unless you stick to a very firm and limited list of flat-fee services, eg. single PC virus disinfection (PC taken away from site) £55, single PC or laptop Wi-Fi setup £40, graphics-card or CPU or memory install £40, or whatever. Any hint of an open-ended remit and you'll end up earning minimum-wage out of it, if you're lucky.

 

I do and did it occasionally. I could not do it full time as there is little money in it. I charged £25/hr and no charge if I couldn't fix the problem. I would probably charge £35 if I were to start it again (it crosses my mind).

If the computer was completely screwed and needed reinstalling I would charge a fixed price and take it away. Then I could do it whilst I was doing my proper job.

Be warned the number of pictures of naked owners I've seen is still etched in my mind. They were mostly men and all ugly.

 

Everyones your mate when they find out you work in IT.... They want all there old crap fixed at 'mates rates' too.... Or a 4pack of carling..... After you've spent hours & hours rebuilding old crap, that had a 5 yr old norton av on it that has never been updated once it expired....

I do it for close family & work colleagues for a kindly favour thats all.... Impossible to charge them any going rate.

Last one was why does my pc run real slow...? Vista with 512mb ram....
Needs (a lot) more ram... Got any... Errm no!... Buy some.... You what!!! How much is that gonna cost....No way...

 

Indeed, friends and family take the mick when it comes to this sort of thing.

 

I think its time I started saying I was a gynaecologist or small **** specialist.

 

For those reasons.........................i`m out

 

tell them, they need to pay you a retainer - say £25 a month

that gives them priority access to your expertise, with site charges on top

that will filter out the chancers -- which i suspect will be 99.9%

 

My mate is a gynaecologist, he wallpapered my hall stairs and landing through the letterbox!!!

Seriously windy - wouldn't waste my time with the PC repair malarky. As said you will not be able to charge for the time it takes to do the work, people will dump a 486 on you, if you cant get windows 7 installed and running on it will all be your fault!!!

I ran a small business in my spare time building machines, I would deliver these to the customers home and offer upgrades down the line on anything I had built. It did take up a lot of my time, I made some money at it, but had to take a decision to do it full time or remain in employment. With hindsight employment was the right route for me.

Other small businesses were a good turn, I moved a couple of small companies entire IT infrastructure to their new premises over a weekend, as they could not afford two days of downtime. Nice earner for a weekend, but these were occasional jobs.

If you want a few extra quid part company with FJ and have a crack at this;

http://www.nijobfinder.co.uk/Job/Nat...3388651/Page27

or

http://www.nijobfinder.co.uk/Job/CIT...5153464/Page29

 

If you can fix computers Windy, I would pretty much guess you can tune in a TV. Setting up TV's, DVD Recorders and Home Cinema systems for the elderly is easy money. Definitely working well for me and I'm not even actively promoting that I do it.

 

How much are they prepared to pay to do that sort of work?

 

£20 quid and a gummy *******, saying that the women were even more generous.

 

You want more money? Get a better job. Sound harsh but lets face it, you want more money and you want more of a challenge hence you need something to keep your brain active. The only option is to change jobs, onwards and upwards. Desktop support is the bottom of the ladder so start climbing. Plenty of specialist fields and higher level support jobs in the IT field so do some learning and start applying.

Fixing other peoples computers isn't going to work. People won't trust you enough to take their computer away and the last thing you want it to be stuck in someones house for a couple of hours running virus scans and reinstalling windows. Let face it that's all it is. Fixing a desktop is a piece of **** and is hardly going to challenge you.

You need to start working on some proper enterprise solutions, think sql, clustering, domain admin, virtualisation, network security...... the list is endless and the jobs are out there. in fact the job market for IT specialists has picked up especially for those with good experience.

 

I didn't think that it was worth it, I just wanted confirmation from other people, I've done a few homer's over the years and as they have been mainly for friends and family I've done then for free or a 24 pack or somethings "a go on your sister" LOL.

She was just on a major rant the other night and I happened to come into the room at the wrong time so I got the tailend of it. It took me weeks to get the time to replace some of the keys on her laptop once so I don't know where she thinks I will get the time to fix other people's pc's and laptop's (never mind travelling to and from their houses etc)

Just by a strange kind of co-incidence I got a phone call from a employment agency last week asking if I wanted them to forward my details onto a local company (so alot less travel costs ) that needed somebody, it's doing desktop support of a kind but in a totally different field that what I have been working in for the past 15 years so I sounds more interesting and they are offereing more money too so I am waiting to hear back about that.

windyboy

 

Coffee over keyboard moment

 

I do all the IT stuff at work but have made everyone aware that I won't do home repairs or have them drop in laptops to fix.

Built a PC for our MD on a budget and of course it was ropey as heck. Sunday afternoon get a phone call and because his kids had messed the machine up with torrents and viruses and suchlike it was my fault and up to me to fix it.

Even today on my way home from up north I stopped in Ross On Wye to a workmates home to set up the router at his place to VPN to our head office. He wants to use his Mrs desktop and his laptop - the desktop running Vista and as old as time itself - you can imagine how swift that POS was to use. He then wants to be able to shift files about and with the lappy no problem I put XP on when we first got it. The Vista machine with all the Vista stupidity in networking took over an hour.

I'd never set up a Netgear router for IPSec VPN and only being used to Drayteks that took ages and I had to get someone to help head office and the only guy I get is the one that has a bit of autism about him and when I say "Pre Shared Key" he says no its not there. It takes about 20 seconds for him to agree that when I said Pre Shared Key I meant the IKE Pre Shared Key but because I missed the IKE, it didn't exist! Alot of this time farting about with the IP addreses and the like. I then get his Mrs come in and start asking me questions about moving the files about like she knows what shes talking about and giving me a "you don't know what your on about" when I tell her the Vista machine is going to play up - it just will whether they like it or not.

 

 

There are a few people, apart from my parents and brother who I will help when it comes to IT type stuff. Anyone outside this group I politely decline to sort out their mess, as it always will be some creaking old pile of junk filled with who knows what and no install media.

What I dislike is that some people expect you to sort this stuff out for them as you happen to know a bit about it. I suppose it's the same if you're in any trade, e.g.; if you're a sparky then you're expected to sort out the wiring in someone's house.

Doing this type of home repair thing as a second job will be soul destroying. You will have zero time afterwards and will resent having to do it.

Being blunt, it sounds like the missus seems to think it's dead easy and that you should be doing all the work because she cannot. I wonder what would happen if you mentioned she could do some cold calling sales thing from home, if she is able to, or something like that. Probably not worth the massive argument that would come from suggesting it though, but it's fine for her to suggest YOU do more work.

 

Mine sees it a bit like this - lots of sitting about and not really doing very much except watching the little bar move across the screen.

What you could do is put all the components out on the dining room table (Sunday morning would be best so shes against the clock to finish and cook Sunday lunch ) and expect a working PC with a fresh copy of Win7.

 

Actually - I'll ask a question now too

Is is possible to tighten the hinges on a laptop screen?
Screen is tiny bit wobbly

 

I do a few home PC repairs, mostly older PC's & Laptops with XP. I have it down to a fine art, last week I was called in to fix a PC at a gym, old Dell POS, XP & 512 mb of Ram - running slow as ****. The previous week I told the owner to remove all photos & documents as they would be gone. 2hours later, fresh copy of XP essentials installed, 1 gig of ram & its flying, (well performing as it should & suitable to run his business again).

Generally its only friends and family & when I can be arsed, but occaisonally I will do jobs for paying customers, usually as they are friends of friends/family.

There isn't lot of money in it & I do turn away work, usually because they expect a 10 year old PC to run Windows 7. I do do a fair bit of other stuff, like network setup, TV /Surround sound. I even had one guy, after I'd fixed his PC, ask me to help him fill out a form from the DVLA - just because I was good with technical stuff, I politely refused.

There are a lot of technophobes out there, but I would be very careful about doing this full time, once you have fixed a PC once, it seems to give people carte blanche to call you 24/7 for PC support - a good example, my hairdresser text me on xmas day with an issue with a brand new laptop her boyfriend bought her. I told her, sure I can help you out over the phone, I will charge you though & it won't be cheap.

 

Now this all depends on how fit the hairdresser is

 

Not very

 

I cant be arsed fixing my own, why should I spend three evenings fixing someone elses shonky old POS P3 with 512 ram, full of malware from the dodgy sites they visit whilst they toss themselves off over the keyboard !

I just say no now, I am just not that bothered about a bottle of three quid Chilean Red wine won in a raffle two years ago. I am the database manager for a FTSE 100 company by day, why do people think that makes me want to f*ck about with knackered old pc's, do they think I enjoy it or is it because I feel obligated, builder over the road took a lot of my time a few years back with various things and then was very evasiv when asked about a building matter so I just say no now.