[TriLUG] Computer Getting Slow

Michael Thompson thompson at easternrad.com
Fri Aug 22 10:40:59 EDT 2003


Absolutely right Jim.  I'm sure your clients appreciate the speedy
service.  I believe professionally, efficiency outweighs the need to
learn (at the job site).  I'll learn on my own dime.  I've seen too many
techs spend too much time and bill too many hours because they didn't
know how to find a problem.  I know many *very* competent techs who find
reloads a very valuable tool (among many) in their bag of tricks.  Of
course, as another member noted, you must pick your battles.  A good
tech will know the difference between wasting time looking for a pink
elephant in the registry and troubleshooting.  I know I'll probably get
a flurry of flames and be called some names for this message but thats
the way things are.  I can't count how many times I've gone into a small
business that hired a consultant who spent days and billed thousands
trying to fix problems and accomplished nothing.  Your clients won't
care what you're learning while your on the clock, they just want to get
back to work as quickly and as cheap as possible.  It must work, I tried
to refer my clients to a local computer store here in town (Greenville)
after finding a great (and stable) job doing lots of Linux things, but
many of them wont stop calling me.  Now I have 2 jobs.  :/  Anyone have
some spare time I can have?  ;)

I'm definitely not saying "re-install always" but sometimes it is the
most cost efficient way of getting a mission critical machine up and
running.  Of course if your doing re-installs for the 'I can't find my
icon' type issues then you should probably consider another profession.

I'm not saying 'don't learn to troubleshoot', and actually the message
that started this thread probably does not apply well to this situation,
as it seems to be someone's home computer that is giving problems.  So,
unless this is costing you money, you should try and troubleshoot the
problem and learn something new, but if your charging someone for your
time, its just plain immoral to educate yourself at your customer's
expense.

Just my $.02...

--mike


On Thu, 2003-08-21 at 21:45, Jim Ray wrote:
> i reload systems and get paid a lot of money to do it.  life is good.
> 
> of course, i investigate problems only when i want to in order to learn.
> 
> i'm not suggesting that reloading a system is appropriate in all cases.  i
> merely put it out there as a method to ensure pristine code.
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: mpdickens at tlanta.com [mailto:mpdickens at tlanta.com]
> > Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2003 9:14 PM
> > To: Triangle Linux Users Group discussion list
> > Subject: Re: [TriLUG] Computer Getting Slow
> >
> > if you
> > don't
> > learn how things work, you'll end up reloading systems
> > forever instead
> > of applying
> > knowledge that enables you to repair a problem in a matter of minutes.
-- 
Michael Thompson <thompson at easternrad.com>
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