NaughtyGirl21 said:
me too, I am the only one in this household that can build, fix, program, and fucking diagnose a fucking computer.
You're a programmer now?
First let me preface my post with some background information. My father is a college professor and my mother is a criminal lawyer, so they've both had years of experience with computers. My family has always had a home PC for as long as I can remember. I remember us having an Apple IIe, a Radio Shack trs80, a Commadore 64, a few pre-pentium IBM compatibles (read: 33MHz system with 66MHz turbo button) etc. I remember when the concept of a mouse was new, and it was a huge clunky monstrosity that connected via a serial cable. I remember DOS shells, Midnight Commander and Windows 1.0. My father taught me BASICA way back in the day, and is actually fairly knowledgeable when it comes to computers. Well, I took to computers pretty early, and I've been a nerd ever since.
Ever since my teens, I've been the family's computer bitch. I remember being blamed for my parents contracting viruses, having to fix their computer and subsequently being grounded from said computer afterwards. I'm always called upon to 'ok' the newest purchases, and fix the problem of the week.
My dad has become increasingly lazy when it comes to computer upkeep and problem resolution. For instance, not too long ago, he got a mildly annoying virus. He was smart enough to unplug it from their local network, but didn't lift one finger to actually resolve the problem. (Of course, this is after he disabled the anti-virus app I isntalled, because it slowed down his school work.) He waited until I came over, handed me the XP cd and asked me to reinstall for him, because "I know more about that sort of thing than he does." He manages a few labs for his classes, and does most of the software installs himself. I know he knows how to properly install XP, he just wouldn't bother.
It's highly annoying, and my parents never take my advice... but they always admit later that they should've listened to me. It's gotten to the point that I won't help them unless they take my advice. That might sound bad, but I'm tired of supporting their poor choices in purchasing, and/or upkeep practices. Case in point, a few years ago when the P4 3.0GHz chips were brand new, he bought a Dell server off Ebay for $500. At the time, that processor cost at least $100 more than the entire server, that's not including the hard drive, ram etc. He's had nothing but trouble with it since, and it's recently been dumped on my sister for use in her dorm. Awesome! Now I get calls from her to unfuck that thing.
Even after more than a decade of using computers, my mom is still scared she'll break it and it'll blow up or something. Yet, despite all of her reservations, she still manages to royally fuck up every computer she touches. I ended up setting up group policy on my mom's laptop; she can't do a fucking thing to it, aside from use the programs that are already installed. She has to bother my father to install new programs, and lately he's been calling me to do it through remote desktop. My dad will put a cd in the drive, then call me so I can connect and click install.exe.
I've been trying to convince them to buy Macs, and it's finally starting to work. If they don't get Macs when they upgrade next time, I think I'm going to just stop answering the phone when they call.
TL;DR: My parents annoy me greatly with their computers and laziness. I wish they'd become Amish or something. Or at least buy Macs.
