I am a computer technician, not a janitor, or a teacher

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ibmat5170
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20 Feb 2018, 4:45 am

Well, I texted my boss about this issue last night. He's a blue bubble fortunately so I knew he read my text. He replied and we chatted for about an hour. I understand his need to keep customers happy, no matter how stupid they are. Its how I get paid he said. If the customers go elsewhere, then there is no work to be done, and the company will fold. Hes also willing to understand that I don't like interacting with customers. We discussed the possibility of him hiring a part time technician to handle outcall work and I just stay in the shop, but we both agreed that might be more of a pain in the butt than helpful. I know all the clients passwords, how their setup is, what is most likely to go wrong, how to get to their locations, et cetera. teaching all that to someone else seems like a lot of work. Plus, when you get another tech, you have to put up with him wanting to do things his way. There is always the "At my last tech job, we set up the clients like this". So the solution we came to was this: my boss would give me a 10 dollar raise for a total of $25 an hour and I would continue to handle business clients and try to work on social interaction. The business clients actually for the most part like me because I AM in and out no chatter. Except the guy at the law office, he's just turned 21 and a paralegal, he's so cute and I have fun flirting with him sometimes. Its the churches and home users that I have issues with. The church people don't like my attitude or appearance (blue hair). I just don't get along with church people. As hard as I try to stay all business, they always bring up God. One lady said she was going to pray that the data recovery was successful from a laptop she dropped. I told her it would not do any good because the damage was already done and praying could not change what had already happened. She got mad. Even though I could recover most of her stuff. So my boss is going to do the churches. Home users are where people complain about the wires (its a rats nest behind my desk). And the trash. which is bs. the HOME USER buys a new computer and and asks us to set it up for them... They bought it from dell or HP or Lenovo, the packing materials came with something THEY BOUGHT. At most my job is to put them back in the box, not take them out to the bin, but that will not be my problem anymore. It looks like we were able to alleviate all of my complaints about the job. Oh one more thing: he said I can leave my work related cell phone at work, or in my car to charge and that if clients call it I do not any longer have to answer it after hours or on weekends.



Mudboy
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20 Feb 2018, 7:55 am

Cool. You are making progress.


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kraftiekortie
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20 Feb 2018, 10:24 am

Were you making $15 an hour before this?

It sounds like the boss thinks you're of use, so he/she was willing to compromise with you. You're actually pretty fortunate in this instance. Other bosses would have told you to take a hike.

But it's still not really correct to assume that people are "stupid" if they don't know computer things. How would you like a carpenter to tell you you're stupid because you don't know about how to install drywall or something?

There are "multiple intelligences" out there. It might be useful if you read Gardner's "Multiple Intelligences."

There might come a time when this "stupid" person will save you from drowning, or from getting your butt kicked or something.



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21 Feb 2018, 4:01 am

ibmat5170 wrote:
Well, I texted my boss about this issue last night. He's a blue bubble fortunately so I knew he read my text. He replied and we chatted for about an hour. I understand his need to keep customers happy, no matter how stupid they are. Its how I get paid he said. If the customers go elsewhere, then there is no work to be done, and the company will fold. Hes also willing to understand that I don't like interacting with customers. We discussed the possibility of him hiring a part time technician to handle outcall work and I just stay in the shop, but we both agreed that might be more of a pain in the butt than helpful. I know all the clients passwords, how their setup is, what is most likely to go wrong, how to get to their locations, et cetera. teaching all that to someone else seems like a lot of work. Plus, when you get another tech, you have to put up with him wanting to do things his way. There is always the "At my last tech job, we set up the clients like this". So the solution we came to was this: my boss would give me a 10 dollar raise for a total of $25 an hour and I would continue to handle business clients and try to work on social interaction. The business clients actually for the most part like me because I AM in and out no chatter. Except the guy at the law office, he's just turned 21 and a paralegal, he's so cute and I have fun flirting with him sometimes. Its the churches and home users that I have issues with. The church people don't like my attitude or appearance (blue hair). I just don't get along with church people. As hard as I try to stay all business, they always bring up God. One lady said she was going to pray that the data recovery was successful from a laptop she dropped. I told her it would not do any good because the damage was already done and praying could not change what had already happened. She got mad. Even though I could recover most of her stuff. So my boss is going to do the churches. Home users are where people complain about the wires (its a rats nest behind my desk). And the trash. which is bs. the HOME USER buys a new computer and and asks us to set it up for them... They bought it from dell or HP or Lenovo, the packing materials came with something THEY BOUGHT. At most my job is to put them back in the box, not take them out to the bin, but that will not be my problem anymore. It looks like we were able to alleviate all of my complaints about the job. Oh one more thing: he said I can leave my work related cell phone at work, or in my car to charge and that if clients call it I do not any longer have to answer it after hours or on weekends.


You are fortunate you have a desperate boss.



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21 Feb 2018, 5:12 pm

Chronos wrote:
You are fortunate you have a desperate boss.

I think you are fortunate that your boss makes too much money off your skills to get rid of you. He could have hired an assistant for you instead of giving you a raise with conditions attached. If he wanted to expand, the assistant / trainee would have been a better business strategy,


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Chronos
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21 Feb 2018, 7:04 pm

Mudboy wrote:
Chronos wrote:
You are fortunate you have a desperate boss.

I think you are fortunate that your boss makes too much money off your skills to get rid of you. He could have hired an assistant for you instead of giving you a raise with conditions attached. If he wanted to expand, the assistant / trainee would have been a better business strategy,


I think you intended to direct that to the OP.



PearlsofWisdom
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24 Feb 2018, 4:51 pm

From my humble opinion, I'd state that one should start off low paid to work their way up.. so Janitor, then Teacher if you are feeling socially ambitious. I'm not really in sync at all with all the techie stuff, its a phantom menace to me.



ElleGaunt
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24 Feb 2018, 9:06 pm

ibmat5170 wrote:
If only people would understand that I am superior to them in knowledge, not a janitor, or a teacher, or an interior decorator, then things would be fine.


Welcome to adulthood! That's life, buddy.



ElleGaunt
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24 Feb 2018, 9:09 pm

kokopelli wrote:
Which behavioral traits do you have that are protected by law in your country?

In the US there are protections for physical and mental handicaps, but I don't think those protections apply to instances of people refusing to do their job.


Yeah I have to be honest that rationale gives the rest of us a bad name.

(To the OP): The important thing is to do your best. Flat out refusing to do something because you are resentful is distinct from being unable to do something. You're making a choice, and rationalizing the choice, so the consequences are your own.
That's not a disability, that's a bad attitude.



ElleGaunt
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24 Feb 2018, 9:15 pm

ibmat5170 wrote:
I was told by my psychologist that my arrogance is caused by my ASD, therefore people have to put up with it, that I cannot be fired for it.


Your psychologist misinformed you. But good luck promoting that argument. And btw, some of what you wrote about stupidity and feeble minds could be applied to your lack of understanding of this issue. I'm not saying that at all, I'm just saying it goes both ways.



PaperMajora
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20 Mar 2018, 12:37 am

ibmat5170 wrote:
Its just so irritating to have to deal with "NTs". I'd much rather spend all day alone with computer hardware, and maybe one or two people I get along with than have to deal with the public. The amazing display of stupidity I have to deal with on a regular basis is annoying enough, but a customer complaining because I did not wire tie the cables behind his desk neatly together or take boxes out to the dumpster seems like bull to me. Aesthetics is NOT what I am concerned with. The core "meat" of the job is to make it work. I don't give a crap if you don't like how it looks and as far as I am concerned, as long as you pay your invoice, you can sit in your desk chair with your thumb up your butt, literally.

Go and try to find someone else who knows how to do things that I can do: Install a SATA hard drive or an AGP video card for example. Who else are you going to get to configure the IRQ on your sound card or ISA modem? Whoever mentioned the bench tech job, I'd rather be doing bench work but desktop repairs have slowed down a lot since all of the sheeple want tablets now. Even though my i7 Rig could run circles around their junky $100 tablet. Their feeble minds can't grasp the concept of the sheer power a desktop has over a portable piece of junk tablet.

The problem is if desktop work keeps slowing down because of these stupid sheeple, I may be out of a job.


Aesthetics are something 99% of society is heavily into. When you walk into a grocery store the items are all neatly stacked, lights are placed over the fresh produce to make it look more appealing etc. When you go into an office everybody is dressed formally, technically they could do their work if they were in their pajamas, but it's just not how things work. If you created the mess you should clean it up. If you were working in a fast food joint, you would be expected to clean up, not just go "ehhhhhh my job is flipping burgers, f..k off". As others have said why should they hire you when they could hire someone who leaves the place the way it was? I wouldn't hire some guy who's gonna trash my computer area and leave it like some eccentric hacker's cave?
Image
Though I'd probably do that myself anyhow. :mrgreen:

As for people thinking tablets are better. Yeah I can sympathize. I'm big on physical media and it annoys me seeing people switch to streaming even though it has so many disadvantages over a good physical copy.


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Benjamin the Donkey
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25 Mar 2018, 1:42 am

If a plumber came to fix my pipes and left a huge mess, I wouldn't call that plumber again, or I'd complain to the owner/manager. Same for a computer technician. If you make a mess, clean it up. Basic kindergarten ethics.


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28 Mar 2018, 4:06 pm

Well I am glad you have reached a compromise with your boss.

Though I think he should have insisted that you do have to pick up the trash...like I just for the life of me cannot not understand why someone would have such a strong aversion to cleaning up their mess they make in someone elses home, but perhaps someday you will learn the value of doing so. Maybe, you'll hire someone for a service and they'll leave a big mess that is inconvenient for you to deal with.


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07 Apr 2018, 7:48 am

OP, you sound like a total jerk. Perhaps your role model is Sheldon from bbt.



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07 Apr 2018, 8:22 am

Sorry dude, but picking up your mess is part of your job. If you worked freelance and did that crap you'd find yourself freelancing the unemployment line sooner rather than later. Having autism doesn't preclude you from cleaning up after yourself, and no your time isn't more valuable elsewhere, your time is as valuable as the customer is willing to pay, and chances are they're paying for a professional service that includes cleaning up.



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07 Apr 2018, 10:05 am

HistoryGal wrote:
OP, you sound like a total jerk. Perhaps your role model is Sheldon from bbt.


But he would clean up after himself.