CEO kids don't go into IT, they go into sales and marketing

No commission in IT

I'm disabled now, but before I ran my own gig by word of month, and I also was contracted out to do work on behalf of other small businesses (along with other work, unrelated). Most customers actually weren't as dense as bricks, but I did balk and leave on a few occasions when the customers were braindead.

I remember this one guy, his printer fucking died and instead of trashing it and getting a new one (it was a piece of shit hp that couldn't have cost more than $60), the dumbass calls us and my boss sends me out. Motherfucker I'm able to fix shit like viruses, file and disk issues, networking, like a level 3 tech but in your house. I don't carry fucking parts for your shitty 2006 inkjet, and because you didn't tell me what the fuck is the actual problem and I had to figure it out myself, you get to pay 2h of labor for no benefit. He got all pissed off and we got into a heated argument, but he did pay the fee. Not my fucking fault you didn't spent one damn second with your own shit and thinking "hmm maybe this bitch is broken". I thought it was drivers, then it was communication issues, then I swapped the cable and that didn't help, reinstall again, software would work but throwing errors every time... eye twitching

I had another with her shitbox Acer, was basically dead and needed a ton of work to revive. I spent 20 minutes on it and it was obvious - I told her this and her options (I had to charge an hour labor even if I was there a couple minutes, or hundreds to save this thing). Again, all pissed off, but I've seen the ads and the boss makes it very clear, 1h minimum and it's not gonna be my ass paying the bill. I left with the check, and I assume she bought a new system. That one needed my care 5y earlier.

But sometimes I got great customers. One lady I remember was not knowledgeable but was eager to learn, and I liked chatting while doing the work. We got talking about how to speed up the machine, and I mentioned switching to an ssd (and explaining the details). She was all giddy, and it was an otherwise solid machine in good condition so I was confident she'd see an improvement. She asked me to go pick her up one and I stopped her - if I buy the drive, I have to charge you 100% markup (no bullshit, that was what I was told to do), but if she bought it, well, the customer already had the hardware. She understood what I was saying without directly saying it, and so we browsed what was available at the nearby best buy site. 'get this one, it's twice the space you have now, it has a 5y warranty, it's by a company I use myself. Don't let them talk you into any extras, I can clone the drive here. Just the drive, and if you need help, call me.' and with that, she left me alone and wizzed to the BB. Half hour later, I was finishing up and she hands me the drive. Perfect. 45 minutes later, platter drive was wiped, ssd was primary, she was very happy, and I left with a tip. I even got to charge my car while I was working.

This was a decade ago, but yeah. Small businesses are cool like that, mostly. That boss would bitch me out for not trying to sell AV or whatever, but he had my back when customers were a bitch too. It was alright. Thought I should have been earning 2.5x what I did for that job, but I was young and nieve. It is what it is.

The few clients I stayed in contact with have been good, and they like my services, so for them I'll still help them out. But the general population, nah. Let someone else handle those customers.