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    Fees For Support

  • 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 incompetent 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 - $100.00
  • 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 drive to another town to fix your problem - $50/mile + gas
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • Spending 30 minutes trying to figure out 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
  • 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

    Beeper Prices:

  • Beeping me when I'm out with the significant other - $50
  • Beeping me when I'm out of town and I took pains to insure that help files were left all over and that diagnostics had been run on all machines before I left - $100
  • Beeping me more than once to tell me that the printer's offline and the fix is to press the On Line button - $200
  • Beeping me more than once while I'm asleep - $50 per beep
  • Beeping me and not identifying yourself within the first 5 seconds - $25
  • Beeping me and then changing your story / denying you placed the call / hoped I would forget who caused the problem - $500

    Special Rates:

  • Dealing with user body odor - $75.00/hour
  • Dealing with user not familiar with the primary language spoken at site - $50.00/hour
  • Dealing with user who is (self-proclaimed) smarter than you are, but still calls every other day for help - $100.00/hour
  • Dealing with computer hobbiests - $125.00/hour
  • Questioning the other prices - $50

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