| Calling me with a question |
$10 |
| Calling me with a stupid question |
$20 |
| Calling me with a stupid question you can't quite
articulate |
$30 |
| Implying I'm incompetant because I can't interpret
your inarticulate problem description |
$1000+punitive damages |
| Questions received via phone without first trying
help desk |
$10.00 |
| Questions where answer is in TFM |
$10.00 + |
| Questions during Xpilot session |
$20.00 |
| Calling me back with the same problem *after* I fix
it once |
$100 |
| Insisting that you're not breaking the software, the
problem is on my end somehow |
$200 |
| Asking me to walk over to your building to fix the
problem |
$5/step |
| Asking me to drive to another town to fix your
problem |
$50/mile+gas |
| If you interrupt me while I was reading news |
$25/hr |
| If you interrupt me while I was trying to count all
the xroaches on my screen |
$35/hr |
| If you interrupt me while I was trying to actually
fix somebody else's problem |
$45/hr |
| If you try to hang around and get me to fix it now |
$50/hr |
| If you expect me to tell you how I fixed it |
$60/hr |
| If you've come to ask me why something isn't working
that I'm currently working on |
$70/hr |
| If you're asking me to fix something I fixed for you
yesterday |
$75/hr |
| If you're asking me to fix something I told you I
fixed yesterday, but never did fix |
$85/hr |
| If you're asking me to fix a quick patch that I made
that didn't work |
$95/hr |
| If you're bugging me while there's another admin in
the room who could have done it for you |
$150/hr |
| Making me trek to your office to fix your problem
then leaving immediately after hanging up the phone |
$1500.00 |
| Calling up with a problem which "everybody"
in the office is having and which is "stopping all
work." Not being there when I rush over to look at
it and nobody else in the office knows anything about it. |
$1700.00 |
| Explaining a problem for 1/2 hour over the phone
BEFORE mentioning it's your personal machine at home |
$500.00 |
| Self-diagnosing your problem and informing me what to
do |
$150.00 |
| Having me bail you out when you perform your own
repairs I told you not to do |
$300.00 |
| Not telling all of your co-workers about it |
$850.00 |
| Figuring out you mean floppy drive when you say hard
drive |
$50.00 |
| BEFORE I order your replacement hard drive |
$250.00 |
| Fixing your "broken" mouse with a mousepad |
$25.00 |
| Fixing your "broken" optical mouse by
rotating the mousepad 90 degrees |
$35.00 |
| Fixing a "broken" mouse by cleaning the
rollers |
$50.00 |
| Fixing your "broken" printer with an
ink/toner cartridge |
$35.00 |
| Fixing your "broken" ANYTHING with the
power button |
$250.00 |
| Fixing the "crashed" system by turning the
external disk back on |
$200.00 |
| Fixing the "hung" systemby plugging the
ethernet transciver back in |
$375.00 |
| Fixing the crashed nameserver by plugging back in the
SCSI cord someone accidentially yanked out on Friday afternoon
when the 'real' sysadmin has just left for a two week vacation |
$400 |
| Visiting your old university and fixing the broken PC
by plugging the monitor lead back in |
$50 |
| Explaining that you can't log in to some server
because you don't have an account there |
$10 |
| Explaining that you don't have an account on the
machine you used to have an account on because you used
it to try to break into the above server |
$500 |
| Forgetting your password after it was tattooed on
your index finger |
$25 |
| Changing memory partitions without informing me first |
$50 |
| Installing programs without informing me /getting
permission first |
$100 |
| Technical support for the above programs |
$150/hr |
| Spilling coke on keyboard |
$25 plus cost of keyboard |
| Spilling coke on monitor |
$50 plus cost of monitor |
| Spilling coke on CPU |
$200 plus cost of motherboard swap plus hourly rate
of $150 per hour spent reinstalling the system |
| Leaving files on desktop |
$5 per file, $10 per day the file is left unclaimed |
| Cleaning the mouse with spit and sleeve |
$50 plus cost of sleeve plus cost of therapy :) |
| Bringing in your own copy of the original Norton
Utilities v1.0 to fix a brand new machine |
$200 |
| Chewing on the end of the graphic tablet stylus |
$25 |
| Putting feet up next to workstation after ten mile
jog through NYC streets |
$50 |
| Spending 30 minutes trying to figureout what your
problem is, and another 5 explaining how to verify and
fix it, only to hear you say... "So that's what the
little box that popped up on my screen was telling me; to
do!" |
$40 |
| Listening to your network troubles, suggesting that
you check to see if you are plugged into the network
jack, hearing yes, trying five other things, asking you
to identify your plug type, listening to you drag
furniture, and hearing a sheepish, "Oops.
Nevermind." |
$35 (including discount for polite apology) |
| Dealing with tech support requests for obviously
pirated software |
$25 |
| Dealing with "How can I get another copy of
[obviously pirated software]? Mine just died."
requests |
$45 |
| Having to use the "We're really not the best
people to talk to about that; why don't you try calling
the number on the box in which you bought it?" line |
$55 |
| Actually needing to explain copyright law to you
after you failed to get the hint in the previous response |
$95 (includes instructions for getting freeware replacements
from the public file server) |
| Having to point out anything that's on the wall in a
typeface larger than 18 points |
$15 |
| If I wrote the sign |
$45 |
| If it's in a 144 point font and taped to the side of
the monitor facing the door |
$75 |
| Reporting slow connection by passenger pigeon packets
to MPEG archive in Outer Slobavia as a Mosaic/Netscape/Gopher/FTP
client problem |
$25.00 |
| Reporting it more than once |
$50.00 |
| Reporting it more than once and implying
slothfullness on tech support's inability to solve problem |
$200.00 |