Comment by wallace_f
7 years ago
That's lucky. When I sas 19, around the height of IE and 'every Windows box with malware,' I tried to start a similar business.
Probably my most wealthy client, with an oversized SUV in the driveway, had a home computer rendered unusable by malware--something I had fixed before. But she ended up asking me to leave. She decided she wanted "real professionals" working on her computer. She told me I didn't know what I was doing, saying 'are you really going to fix it for this much or do you actually need to just start searching the web for what you are doing? (she saw that I had performed a google search...).'
It took me way, way too long in life to learn most of it is just perception and learning how to manage dealing with less-than-ideal people.
This attitude to googling is poisonous. I once helped an elderly relative in my teens with his router and I got the same treatment after I googled the answer. Later we watched a court drama the entire family, with the same relative present, and there was a scene where the lawyers crack the books and review the legal paper work. Being the obnoxious teen I was I couldn't help myself from blurting out "Wow, what terrible lawyers, look at them doing research for their cases before they solve the problems. Wow, I figured they could recite every law and ruling ever by heart since they supposedly know what they're doing, now I question why the defendant doesn't just represent himself, I mean everyone can read a book, right? This movie is so unrealistic!"
I got scolded by my parents but at the end of the day: worth it.
Goosh.org
"You're not paying me to search Google, you're paying me to know what to search for and how the results apply or don't to your particular situation."
They should put a black background on this with green text to make it more realistic.
Right, you should have charged her more. If you pick a rate that seems reasonable for the amount of work involved then she'll wonder why she couldn't just do it herself. You also need to price in all the learning and experience you needed up to that point, otherwise the client will think you're doing a cheap/half-assed job.