I’m not only a service tech but also run a small business repairing computers, networking, etc. general IT duties for the regular joe and other small businesses. There is sometimes a real conflict.. the computer job is not a stable 8-5, so the service tech job comes first… ‘but’ when I do get jobs for my own business I make an ass load more than what I make at the 8-5 and the job usually only takes me a couple hours.

Last week a real estate office called me that I usually do work for. They wanted to network all their computers to a really nice all in one printer they bought. I told them I could do it Friday evening. Well to make a long story short I was there from 5:30 to 8 and didn’t get shit accomplished. They didn’t have the typical hardware I needed to do the job right.

They’re set up included a cable modem and two routers, one wireless one not. I spent that whole fucking time trying to configure one into a hub/switch but it just wouldn’t happen. and after fucking with it so long I just couldn’t figure out why Cisco/Linksys didn’t just put a fucking ‘hub/switch’ option in there. This makes perfect sense since a lot of people end up upgrading their routers. I have two old linksys routers in my closet- one could definately be used as a switch right now.

I finally told them, look your going to need to get a switch for any of this to work right. I come back the next day on my lunch break, they have the switch- everything installs just fine. The only thing that was a pain in the ass was installing the print software on each machine. Which I basically had to do because I didn’t set up anything with static IPs on their network, even the printer uses DHCP. I just didn’t feel like spending any more time there than I had to, plus the woman that was going to pay me is pretty cheap so I try to keep my prices down a bit so they’ll keep calling me.

Everything went smoothly except one guys laptop. This fucking thing would crash at the very end of the print software install. EVERY TIME! freakin blue screen. He was running xp, it was a brand new laptop. If anything I thought his machine was going to give me the least amount of trouble. I’m still unsure of how to resolve his issue. I’m going to try to get some of the print software off the net and see if a new package will install on his computer :/

ahhh so what I forgot to mention is when I came back the next day to do all this shit I was on my 8-5 lunch break! haha. it was actually a long lunch break, which ended up fucking up the rest of my day because I ended up getting a bunch of jobs when I left that place.

I’m just put in a shitty position right now. Where I live my current job might be the most techy job available.. there are a couple places that do what I do on the side and they really fuck things up for me because their name has already saturated the market. At one point I considered to going to work for them but I’d be making less than my service tech job. About the only comp type job around here that might pay ‘decently’ would be ‘geek squad’. I’ve ‘heard’ some of them make $15/hr. What I’d have a problem with in that environment is the people I’d have to work with. Sure most of them know more than the average person but compared to the average personal who really knows their shit- they’re fucking retarded.

I hate being around people who act like they know everything and don’t. If you know more than me than go ahead, maybe I can learn from you but if your just a dumb ass shut up. I think they get use to being the only one who ‘knows about computers’ in their family and so it gives them a big head. Then they goto school or work with that mentality.

Well its about time to start my daily grind. Hopefully that turd with the fucked up laptop doesn’t call me today, I havn’t had time to research what could be happening with his machine…