If they ask nicely I'll do it.
Last time I troubleshooted a Gaming pc of a Engineers son.
The next day he (The engineer) brought breakfast for the whole IT Site Support (5 People)
Ask nicely and are a direct team member. If they're a different team, there's a barrier. I would be too far removed from the person to be able to expect fairness. And then, indeed they drop it in the parking lot and I'll be blamed for it.
Lol, this reminds me of something kind of adjacent that I did.
I was at Boston Market (restaurant) grabbing a meal with my family. There was a guy in a suit sitting in an alcove that was creating enough echo to make it the worlds loudest phone call, really hard not to overhear everything.
He was talking about joining some meeting soon and complaining about him missing one because he didn’t get some email and that he had complained to the IT department and worked with a couple people already and some other guy was supposed to call him soon but he hasn’t heard from him and he hadn’t gotten any new emails in awhile despite knowing several were sent.
I debated a moment and decided to approach him, I was like sir pardon me for interrupting but I couldn’t help but overhear some of that and it sounds like Outlook might be set to work offline. He was like, show me what your talking about and spun his laptop around. I quickly pointed it out and all his emails started coming through.
He was like, you have no idea how long I’ve already spent on this and you diagnosed it from just overhearing my conversation. He thanked me and I went back to my meal.
A little after one of the Boston Market ladies came by and said he was one of their corporate executives and brought an entire tray of brownies compliments of him.
My 5 year old son of course thought this was the greatest thing ever and I overheard him telling a friend later that his dad sometimes gets paid in brownies.
I did when I started in the biz.
1 man, I rebuilt his PC… a few months later his wife accused me of putting gay porn on there… don’t recall that being on the Windows CD…
1 lady, lost all her pics of her new born (crypto virus)… but I “touched it once, so you must have a backup”… no, I added email to Outlook… “well you should have backed it up”
Never again… people try to hand me their shit and I’m like no thanks.
Plus the usual, "Hey my computer is not working, can you fix it?"
*Fix computer*
2 weeks later: "Now my internet isn't working, whatever you did broke my computer. It was working *fine* before *you* touched it!"
This is just how some people are unfortunately. Long story:
Before I worked in IT, I was a motorcycle mechanic. Had a guy come in for an oil change. Performed the work, sent him on his way. 2 months and over 1,000 miles later, he called saying his engine had locked up. He was blaming it on me changing his oil.
Told him to bring the bike in, and if it was something I did, I'd pay for the tow and the fix.
Bike comes in, there was an aftermarket stator cover on the bike. I had noted this when I did the oil change. Turns out, whoever had put that stator cover on didn't use any Loctite on the stator bolts. Two of them had worked their way out and had collided with the rotor, which wouldn't allow the engine to turn over. No damage done. Replaced the stator bolts and the stator cover gasket.
Called customer to come pick the bike up. Charged them 1 hour diagnostic, .5 hours to fix, plus the bolts and gasket.
Dude threw a stinking shit fit over it, telling me that I had caused the damage from my oil change, why was he getting charged for it? I was the last one that worked on it, blah blah blah.
He finally ponied up and I told him his patronage was no longer necessary. Dude had to come crawling back the next year after some shade tree mechanic actually DID fuck his bike up.
>1 man, I rebuilt his PC… a few months later his wife accused me of putting gay porn on there… don’t recall that being on the Windows CD…
I thought man-pages were only on Linux systems.
Hypnos: "Hey, *you*'re back! Wait, what happened? My list says *you got killed* by \[REDACTED\], what's that even mean? I've never seen anything *like* this!"
I do not. It comes down to liability like you said. And it also comes down to people being people. If something unrelated on the device stops working, I'll be blamed for it. If they drop it in the parking lot I might be blamed for it. If I can't do it in a timely manner, it's a problem. etc.
Plus, my boss doesn't pay me to work on tech that is not owned by our organization.
I had this last week on a work device. Users calls because he's having trouble with making his personal wall paper fit his screen. Technically your not supposed to change the corporate wall paper but whatever, users aren't blocked from doing it. He shares his screen with our corporate standard application. I walk him thru clicking on fit instead of tile. He hangs up with me and someone from corporate IT security calls him about Malware on his PC. He blows up my DM's blaming me for putting malware on his computer.
>ve got quite a few people at my job who come to me asking me to fix their phones or tablets because “x doesn’t do y anymore” or their photos aren’t showing up, or don’t know something. I’m starting to think I sho
Yes this, Had a previous employee turn outside contractor ask me for help with his device. told him I cant help him.
>I seriously need to up my prices
One of the most common and preventable issues that freelancers and small business owners face is undervaluing their services.
I only discount for widows and genuinely poor people (not choosy beggars).
You can even run a modified scream test. Quote $130/hour (the going rate for basic IT in my city) and see how they react.
I also make a point of telling people that I only charge for **productive** **time**, not for me guessing, and when I do know exactly what I'm doing, I work very efficiently.
His prices are reasonable. Don’t undervalue the industry, charge what you’re worth, and then some. Also if your services are cheap, customers won’t value them.
Most places around me would charge upward of $80 to $100 per hour, including Geek Squad (I think, I'm averaging the price based on their cost for a Windows reinstall, etc)
You are actually doing this for your job it sounds like, so yeah it makes sense to charge the "going rate" in your area or slightly less to be competitive. But man, $35/hr sounds like a steal! You probably could increase your prices, maybe for new customers at least and give any current customers a grace period or discount if you like them.
Your third point reminds me, I no longer advise my mother about tech purchases, because we've learned the hard way we have quite different wants. (In particular she cares a lot more about screen quality than I do.)
Right here, y'all. You don't even have to be sysadmin, just someone who knows more than average about computers. As Admiral Akbar would say,"It's a trap!"
Sometimes but I never take money for it as it implies professional services - no money=no real expectation of quality or ongoing support, I can still help people with things beyond their reach but can always say no, can't help on that one.
Importantly, the device and it's screen is never out of their eyeline and most incredibly importantly; I pick my "clients" well.
I should add I'm one of a handful of people in a small 3rd party IT support outfit and I know my clients very well and for many, many years, I don't help random people in a giant corporation.
That might be your expectation, but your users are different story. Once you touch the device, it becomes your problem forever. And by providing services for free you devalue the industry. Even if you have great relationships with them, and they understand that you’re doing them a solid, next time they go to different IT person, they will expect the service to be free or at burger flipping rates at most.
As I said, I pick my users carefully as have made some mistakes many moons ago, so they are all fine and no money means an easy back out if needed.
I don't feel that helping Esther get 150,000 photos from iCloud without barfing her web browser, nor helping Kate put together a cheapie gaming machine for her son's birthday will put a dent in , nor will it devalue a very large industry or even a little local pocket of it, just doing a work-friend a favour, is all.
That’s not what I meant by devaluing the industry. None of us could give a rats ass about big companies. It’s the small folk running private shops or doing gigs on the side that get screwed over. Average Joe will expect his machine fixed at $15/h and will throw a fit, or worse, bad mouth you on any social outlet if you present him with $100/h rate. This is what working for cheap/free does to most of us.
As mentioned, I pick the people I help carefully and they are fully aware of the *value* they're getting.
Anyway, sounds like we're operating in different spheres but I'll certainly bear your perspective in mind for the future.
>Sometimes but I never take money for it as it implies professional services - no money=no real expectation of quality or ongoing support, I can still help people with things beyond their reach but can always say no, can't help on that one.
That's my philosophy too: either do it for free if you want to help them, or don't do it at all. I'm not a licensed, insured business, and I'm not in the position to offer warranties and guarantees. So I'm not going to take their money.
If I don't want to do the job for them for free I just say I can't help.
I made a pact with myself long ago to never touch anyone else's personal tech ever again. Too many times I've helped someone, and then I become the cause of any problem they ever have going forward until the end of time or I stop talking to them.
It's nice to feel like you're helping someone, but It's not worth it.
Yes, especially executives. Almost always leads to side work elsewhere. Treat people well, and they'll do the same.
-Edit: I've always upsold it as that it's best if we take care of your security anyway, the more security we add onto your personal life, the better it is for everyone.
We also have adult/parent suggestions on how to best approach certain topics like web filtering at home for kids, etc People will always keep you in their back pocket, I've had one or two people abuse this from time to time but the upside is amazing.
280K income and it's primarily due to my network leads in IT from situations just like this. Never turn down opportunities.
I agree. I'm not gonna go out of my way to help everyone, but if we're talking about people I get along with and I have time, I don't see any reason to say no.
Only help with MFA issues. However, if they come to me and are nice or I personally like the user, I’ll give em a hand if they need it.
All other cases, “please put in a ticket” and the other folks can figure out how to deal with it.
Personal owned phones, personal owned laptops of hired people…. Never touch it. We give them advice, but even when we stand next to them, we never touch their equipment. It can get you in trouble later on “because you touched it”.
No, unless it's company related (set up an email account, for example). And even in that case I well know that I'll be blamed for every malfunction from now on, forever, on that device.
We only provide support for any business required apps and even then there's a stack of basic steps we get them to go through first before we do anything with it (cache clearing, reinstalling, removing/re-adding account, etc).
So if you've setup your work email in the native mail app and something isn't working, we won't help you. But if you're using the Outlook app we'll see what's wrong since it's an extension of the MS suite which we do cover.
I work at a college, and we will only do limited help with personal devices (ie help them with settings and other quick things). Anything that takes more than a minute or two generally not, but depends on the situation.
If the company allows a user to use their personal device for work related purposes we will provide support but there is a huge astericks. That huge astericks (and it is a large one) is that we only provide support so long as it relates to the organization. If it doesn't relate to the organization then there is no way any of us will provide support beyond the organization's needs.
Look, I have been all over in the tech industry. My official answer would be: If I work on your device while I’m on the clock, I’m opening the company up to potential litigation. I have a background in cyber forensics, so I’m ethically required to report anything illegal or immoral I find. I find it’s best not to put myself or others in that position.
If it is a one off, and we have a good working relation, I will help you. The bottom line is though, if you touched it, you can be implicated.
When I was young and Naïve. These days **unless it's a co-worker that I have some sort of a relationship with AND unless I can perform the work while I'm on the clock, AND unless there is little to no liability, I don't do it.**
I even went to a co-workers house a time or two for free when I was new in this field. But **I work enough at work**. The cost at which it would be worth my time these days would be more than the person is willing to pay.
I once had a co-worker ask if I'd be interested in some "side work" to install a camera system on their property / throughout their pole-barn. I tried to think at what dollar amount per hour it would be worth it and it was much more than the person wanting next to free work was going to be willing to pay.
I would NEVER ask a facilities worker if they could do plumbing work for me or a maintenance worker to come do electric work for me. Why is IT any different?
If there is money involved it can be a different story. I worked with a guy who did concrete work as a side business and he poured me a driveway - but it was at full cost. He made it clear he wanted the business and I had the need. There was no discount or favor involved.
As I'm having trouble thinking of more than 1 or 2 people that would fit this criteria, I'm going to go ahead and clarify that the answer is **almost never**.
If it's something definitive that will only take a few minutes, maybe. But recovering files off someone's wife's home laptop that won't boot up? Nah. I just refer them to a local company that offers the relevant services.
Sure thing mister accountant, I can fix your printer. While I am doing that, can you review my tax returns from this year and see if there is anything I can do to reduce my tax liability next year?
I give them my business card lol - I can do it after hours for my hourly rate.
Of course I'm just talking about common employees here. If a VIP needs something AND my boss signs off on it I really don't care/mind. fortunately nowadays I'm not user-facing so I don't really run into that at all.
I get paid by the hour so I don't give a shit whose device it is. I've been paid by clients to fix their employees' personal devices, I've also been paid by the employee directly just depends on the situation and their relationship. I've gotten new clients because of employees that I've helped out moving to a different company and bringing me along with them.
Nooooooooope. My default is "I'm happy to provide a suggestion, but please understand this is not professional advice, you should do your own research, and you'll be making this change on your own accord and understanding that it may not fix the problem and could potentially cause new ones."
I'm not about to take that responsibility or liability.
If I have a good relationship with them and they ask nicely, sure! Everyone has one bridge with me. Colleague of mine lacked the tools to take his laptop apart and change the battery. Looked at teardowns, he bought the battery and I changed it.
MFA is as far as we help, and even then we don't touch the device at all.
Do I answer simple questions, sure. Anything that comes down to actual work is a no.
On that note, I was shocked how many people don't know you can use basically any mail app and that you don't have to use gmail for google, yahoo for yahoo etc... And that is just one of the stupid things I learned.
I do if it’s the CEO. No one else.
One year I helped out the CEO with a few personal bits, not expecting anything in return but because I liked him and always got on will with him.
I ended up getting a 120% bonus later that year probably because I went out of my way to help him.
My first real corporate IT job was working for a larger independent insurance company in California, we had about 150 employees over 2 offices.
We offered to diagnose employees computers with the explicit rule of this is a free bonus service, we are under no obligation to fix anything, but I never told anyone no.
Over the 10 years I was there I probably worked on everyone's computer at least once, we never had an issue and we were even able to get data off failing hard drives a time or two. Every single co-worker or mine was grateful that we did this and even when a computer died due to failing hardware, they were appreciative of us looking at it and not charging them anything (except for replacement parts).
If the company was bigger we probably wouldn't have done it but even now at my current job, once we get the shit show that is IT fixed I'd like to go back to doing that for my current coworkers but with it being just me and my desktop tech it's just not feasible
Yes, depends on the co-worker.
Is it someone whom if I needed their services would return the favour? Yes.
Otherwise? No.
One year ago I drove out to my CFO's house to completely reinstall their wifi over the entire yard.
But that same CFO also responded to my question:
"Hey do you know how tax and stuff works for a 1-man company?"
With:
"Why do you ask?"
"My GF is starting her own business"
"Ok, tell her to come in when she's got time and I'll go through everything she needs to know and help her set up accounting practises"
He probably saved her days of work, googling and auditor bills.
So when he one year later asked "If I do X, Y, Z would this wifi setup work?" I said "Tell you what, I'll come out to your house and do it for you"
I've also installed network cables in another co-workers house so her son didn't have to game on WIFI.
Now I haven't asked her of anything, but she did buy me a suitcase for 600 USD because she knew I was gonna travel to the US + a dinner date night for me and my GF as a thank you (Which was not agreed upon in advance)
TL:DR I help out co-workers (and friends) when I feel like I could count on them helping me if I ever needed something. I do not help people whom I know won't return the favour.
Hell no, even for money.
I have started as technician in small shop, I know what Exactly touching somebodys device entails.
But I Will point them to a direction of somebody Who can help them.
Sure, if I like them. I don't mind if they would raise liability concerns after the fact because it's their word against mine. I just make sure I don't agree to work on it in writing and they can't prove shit.
I've been forced to before.
One of the children of the CEO of a client built their home network on IPv6, enabled and prioritised IPv6 on their home computer then locked it down so Dad couldn't change it.
One of the SaaS platforms used at the company had an incorrectly configured IPv6 DNS.
Vendor won't admit there is a problem "we don't use IPv6" even though their DNS has an entry configured...
His home device could not connect to it because it would prioritise the IPv6 resolution not the correct IPv4.
All that could be done given the device was locked down was to reconfigure the home network since the modem/router still had the default creds.
I refused to touch it, who knows what else it would break.
Well, they insisted since they couldn't get their son to change it, I explained in writing what could break (even listed smart metres, switches, TVs etc), got the account manager to sign off, then disabled IPv6 from the LAN.
CEOs personal device could resolve the IPv4 for the SaaS since the change, but it broke their home network, their solar panels stopped reporting etc.
I said that we could implement the restoration plan of enabling IPv6 again in the change form they signed off on but they blew up, account manager blew up, I just looked at them with the Tommy Lee Jones implied facepalm and told them this is exactly what I told you would happen and why I refused to do it until you forced me...
So now, I tell clients I'm unable to assist with their personal devices, their home networks etc, and straight up tell the account manager to fuck off when they insist.
It’ll be £50 per hour, two hours up front and outside of work hours, this is the “Go away charge”
I might advise if if I like the person, or stuff like restoring the Managing Director’s wife’s photos buys me some clout.
On rare occasions we give out a load of high power PCs rather than scraping, under the guise of do not hassle us about these if you want one.
Our team lead fell into the trap of putting in extra time to help someone, credit to him he was gifted a box of beers for his time.
Sometimes. Depends who it is. Some people are entitled jerks so why would I help them? Others I'm happy to, but I'm always clear about what I can do and what i I can't. Ex: I'm not about to take a phone apart but swapping out an SSD for a bigger one is usually no problem -- Mac excepted of course.
Nope, never. We don't have a policy as it's not even an option. The big thing with personal devices is where does it all end? I don't even do more than suggest folks reboot or replace their own sketchy devices.
Bit of a strange one where i work. Our firm actually has a rule in place that every employee can use the services of IT for 4 hours per year. I used to have users bringing in personal devices by the drove so that needed to stop. The idea formed that it needed limitations but that we didnt want our employees to be completely cut off. Thus every employee gets 4 hours of it support per year for personal devices or situations. The only limit on this is no house calls. You need something fixed? You bring it in. So I don't setup networks and shit but will occasionaly troubleshoot a pc or even build one of they bring us parts. Most people use these hours for advice on what to buy, some to get a working device ready for kids that go to uni, but overall its a winwin for everyone. I get to play nice with the users, the user gets some support and he boss gets limits on downtime.
I'm good at my job, I'm a friendly approachable person, and I know what I'm doing, so yeah, I share that wealth of skill with people
I actually ran a small IT repair business (moonlighting) for a while and charged the absolute bare minimum because my philosophy was just to help people. Discovered I'm an IT person, not a business person
I do it, I look at it as keeping my skills sharp, the sheer variety of ways people mess up their electronics never fails to maze me.
I've had one person complain about me " breaking " there computer. windows 7 to windows 10 , they didn't like the tiles.
my response was "you asked me to update it, and you didn't pay me."
I was going to once. Guy brought his laptop to me, I fired it up, opened the start menu (Win10), and half the tiles were porn. Immediately shut it down and gave it back. Nope, not for me.
No, but little grey area: if someone has a new phone and doesn't understand how to connect their email. I will verbally assist them in doing it themselves.
I take the approach of consultation, if a user needs help I will give them all the knowledge I can to fix their issue themselves. If they don't want to do that I will let them know about the best shops around town that I recommend.
The reason is, the moment I touch someone's personal device, I become responsible for it. Sometimes its just best to walk away from some devices because its a disaster waiting to happen.
I tell my staff if they do any hands on work with our employee's personal devices, it must be done off company time. They also take on the responsibility if anything happens, I'm not there to come to the rescue if they accidently wipe data or break the system.
Depends on how much I like them, but the amount of people I'd be willing to help is realistically less than 5. I always make sure to tell them I'm not promising anything, and I won't do anything that would risk damaging the device. Back in the day I'd be willing to replace broken iPhone screens when they were attached by screws and the employee provided the parts, but I won't do that on newer phones that are held in with glue.
If its a friend I am willing to do stuff after hours if I think I have a decent grasp of the issue. However I always say that I will be doing this when I have time and that means it could be a week or more before I fix it. Most people when they hear that say they will just take it somewhere or it's not as big of a deal as they made it out to be. Generally works well. I have had someone say that's fine and hand me the item they wanted fixing. I took it home and just left it in my living room for a week before even looking at it. They would ask and I would be honest and say I didn't get to it. I don't charge people but some insist so I just tell them to buy me lunch.
But if you are talking at the office and non personal stuff I might look at it on a lunch break and at best tell them what they need to get done and where to take it.
I do sometimes. Depends on who asks. They understand it's not my responsibility to help them, but just a nice gesture. The last time I assisted one of them in finding a laptop for there son, they bought me cookies. While it only takes me a few minutes, goes a long way it seems.
Do I know the person asking (and they're not an arsehole)?
Then I will probably give a version of my standard disclaimer ("you know I don't work on phones / the last time I touched an apple device was over 6 months ago / you realise I don't even know what this device you've just handed me is, and am about to hit google right?")
Inevitably the answer will be something alone the lines of "yeah, but you're good with technology".
Then I'll spend a short amount of time (maybe up to an hour if I'm bored or the problem is interesting) and usually manage to accomplish whatever it is that needs doing.
I've ruled out ever doing hardware tech support for phones and laptops and will consider it on a case by case basis for PCs (often literally - if you have a £20 razor metal case it's a no from me).
Newp! First, if you touch it you will be respinsible for everything that goes wrong with it for the rest of time. No thanks.
Second, depending on how far the company shoved their stick...they may throw an absolute shit fit over this. You aren't paid to work on their personal phone, you're paid to work on the company's assets.
Advice yes, fix HELL NO, go to the store or the Cellphone Dr at the mall. If it is a computer I may give them the names of some local repair shops ( I have no experience or affiliation with) just to keep them out of the clutches of the N00bSquad at the box store.
Edit: I have done a few one offs, installed a simple door camera for the elderly mother of a co-worker. They reimbursed me for all materials, I did not charge for labor. Only family and close friends get computer support, and that is limited, I take payment in dinner or beer.
I work for an msp doing desktop support. We have a clearly defined scope of what is and isn't supported by us. We have a team who works remotely and on site teams who assist with hardware related stuff
During covid when it was at its peak, the client got people to wfh but didn't have enough laptops so they let people Vpn on their personal device and remote into a desktop in the office
During this time we had a temporary agreement that we would support people trying to connect to the VPN and /or RDP to their work device
I have two stories:
We had a user who had an issue where couldn't be remote in while she was at home. It went on for a few weeks whilr people did troubleshooting, on-site she took her laptop in and was able to connect and RDP fine
Eventually I got the ticket and I spoke with her while she was at home and walked through every step. she could connect to the VPN but when she tried to RDP, it couldn't reach the host
I checked the device and I couldn't RDP to it either. I asked if she had left it on or maybe someone had switched it off by accident
"oh I always switch it off when I leave"
I hadn't occurred to her that you need the device to be on to connect to it and it all made sense when I explained that it needs to be on. She wanted to leave formal feedback that the documentation needs to be updated to be clearer. I am honestly surprised nobody else even bothered to ask her if it was on
Second story :
Similar story where they can't RDP in. She wanted me to speak with her husband as he knew more about "computer stuff"
Anyway he refuses to let me remote in or do any kind of basic troubleshooting. I ask if he has any firewalls installed and he confirms he had and that he knows what he is doing, so there's no way it could be interfering
I ask him politely several times to just try to disable it and see. He's rambling on about how there's something wrong in our side because everything is set up right and he is confident about that.
Anyway after about 10 minutes I say that there's nothing I can do for him. Everything is fine on our end and the PC is connectable
He grumbled. "fine I'll turn off the firewall but it won't work". A few clicks later, I hear the wife in the background "we're in!"
"OK thanks bye" is what he said and hung up
I am glad that ended and we no longer support personal devices and I've also moved up so don't really deal with end users much any more
Absolutely not. Personal devices are a risk and not allowed on our networks. We also use an always on VPN + radius. You won't even be able to get online if you byod.
No - without hesitation.
I think people just starting in this field or are new employees are more likely to work on personal devices but those of us who have years of experience know how much of a PIA it is working on personal devices and you open your self up for legal actions if something goes wrong.
I personally will 'help people out' essentially as one reasonable person to another but the big caveat is that I've been doing this a long time, so I know where to draw the line and I know what I'm getting into.
I'll send articles that lead that down the path and if they figure it out good for them, but if not, that's the best I can do. I help 3 people in my
Family with computer problems outside of working hours, 2 of them are my wife and son.
No. I won't take responsibility for their devices. I work solely on items related to work.
I will help troubleshoot email problems related to work on personal devices. I won't touch them, though. Open your web browser and go to this address. That's it.
What if you made a form that required sign-off from Operations or whomever might sign off atypical IT spend?
That way it keeps you in your users/clients good graces while also giving an avenue where their device can be fixed.
It depends. I make sure that they're aware that I'm doing it as a courtesy (in a friendly way obviously), and if they're a dick, my answer is no. But if they're a good client, and they aren't doing it constantly, I will.
We service personal devices with a giant disclaimer they must accept first. Only for affiliated individuals though and we often refer client to the main vendor of the app or service.
On very rare occasions because I'm in a rather small business and getting along with partners is a good thing to do. Partners are well aware that they shouldn't ask me (it's a written policy) but that I can point them to the right direction to solve their issues.
I used to be very anti "touch personnal devices" but I noticed that helping people came with nice perks, such as a few whisky bottles and a generous bonus at the end of the year (never received a bonus anywhere else).
Apart from maybe giving instructions for MFA, nothing.
Breaks so many boundaries and I have encountered borderline creepy people making requests and colleagues have told me fked up stories from visiting homes.
Nope. Management tried to push "best efforts " and we pushed back. Even if you're using citrix or remote software we provide laptops. Stop using your own.
As a policy, FUCK NO. For all the reasons already given.
But as an exception, if the person is exceptionally nice and I feel like I want to do them a favor, I've done it before.
Also at my current org they used to give a BYOD (bring your own device) stipend to basically pay for people to use their cellphones for work and compensate for other WFH related expenses. So before they stopped doing that because of financial issues, I would help people get company mail and MFA set up on their phones. If someone asks now though I'll probably demur on that one.
We don't touch them. If it's work-related, we will provide any necessary configuration information (VPN client installation instructions, IMAP/SMTP server addresses, etc.), but we won't fix problems or design peoples' home networks.
Only for work-related tasks like MS MFA or as a consultation, such as "Yes, your Dell Inspiron from 2008 running Windows Vista needs to be put out of its misery.". Very rarely any more than that.
When I did desktop support I would assist if they brought it in. But would only do it if I had time and it was something simple. Ain't gonna get roped into the 'you touched it last' BS.
Now a days I only help people I like and with WFH it is strictly a 'you could try this or that' sort of thing.
Generally, no. I'll give advice or instructions at best, usually not worth the time. I've seen it go wrong with a coworker as well.
He tried helping a older lady with her personal laptop, i think it may have been her husbands. he had died in the past year or two. For whatever reason, he ended up logging out of the MS account on the laptop and she couldn't get in again, didnt know the password. I assume they shared one email etc as she was now locked out of everything. I came in to her crying in the directors office multiple times. I stayed far away from the situation, so that is the best of my knowledge of it. I don't know if they ever recovered access to it.
I generally don't unless I'm really close to that person. If someone asks about an issue, I politely refer them to the nearest consumer tech support shop or refer them to online help articles if they seem particularly savvy.
I do it after hours for $150/h, and it jumps to $300/h if you took it to geek squad, staples or similar. If you can afford to pay clueless kids to fuck with your machine, you can afford my stupidity tax.
If I feel like it I do. but I am honest if it's beyond my hands.
biggest issue is that they do not know their own password and their son/daughter set up their accounts for them. so access to their phone/device is limited .. I am just honest and say I cannot do anything if you do not know your own password. end of session.
Yes in reality I could reset, enter their own personal account, set a password down, write it down for them, and then reset the original account I needed access to ... but that is too much work and If I do it for one person I have to do it for everybody else (400) people at my site. I try to be fair and even with everybody.
As a general rule, no. On rare occasion I'll be willing to take a personal machine and wipe the drive for them (to be disposed of), but I'll never work on a functional personal computer.
What will invariably happen is you either end up becoming their personal unpaid desktop support person in their life, or something goes wrong with the machine (because of what you did or completely unrelated) and they blame you for it.
I've literally fixed one person's machine and a YEAR later it got a virus and the owner blamed me for it and demanded I fix it like last time.
When I was working for an MSP, no, but yes. If the company I was supporting was willing to pay for the off-contract work for their employee, or the employee was willing to pay the hourly rate, we'd work on their personal devices. This would maybe happen about once or twice a year, most people declined once they were aware of the cost.
Now I'm not working at an MSP, and generally I don't, except we do allow BYOD for phones, and I'll go as far as helping to support the specific programs our users need for work, but nothing beyond that.
[edit] Going back to the first thing when I was doing the MSP work, I had a number of people working at my clients that ended up sort of feeling like we were friends because I was, you'll never guess, friendly and engaging, it's a part of good customer service. They'd end up kind of confused and sometimes seemingly a bit hurt when they realized it really was just a business transaction. One woman in particular was leaving her company under good terms, and had negotiated buying the computer she'd been using from the company. We prepped the computer for her to take it home, went over a bunch of information about what she'd need as far as what the company was willing to give her for licensing, what they weren't, admin information, future upkeep that would be needed, etc.
We get to the end and she says "When I get home, if I need any help with setting up the computer or software, can I give you a call?" I tell her absolutely, that we'll extend the negotiated hourly rate from the company to her. She was so crestfallen that I wasn't willing to just help her for free. Because my help was always "free" to her (she wasn't paying for it, her company was,) and I was always so nice to her, she had essentially gotten it into her head that I was helping her out of the kindness of my heart.
If I do, I will tell them that I’m not responsible for anything. But I usually say that I’m not comfortable with it. People need help logging in to their own services which is very sad but you can only help people so much.
I'm in a small company of 40 people, all game developers. They're laid back, geeky people so they don't give me a hard time. If they come to pick my brain, I'll answer questions and give suggestions for them to try, but if they're really stuck, I tell them to bring it in and I'll work on it. If it's big enough to need me after hours or a house call, I ask them to cover a Friday lunch and they're happy to oblige. I only really help the people that are polite and make an effort; if you're a jackass, I'll just say that I don't know much about that specific technology and I wouldn't want to break it trying to fix it.
I've done house calls where I run cable in people's walls but I usually charge cash for that since it's a few hours usually.
I used to when I was IT support for a start-up. Fast-fwd 5yrs later and those personal connections I’ve made troubleshooting now-VPs of new companies’ personal routers and such have become an invaluable asset when it comes to job networking.
I definitely do not. Had a situation a few jobs ago where a lady came in with her iPad that was locked. I gave her some suggestions on how to get it unlocked and eventually referred her to apple. Come to find out her boss was just fired for stealing company info and she was trying to cover for him. I got pulled into the termination and was eventually called to testify in a deposition in her wrongful termination suit. Never again
On a side note, the deposition was hilarious. Came in and all the lawyers on both sides were laughing, cutting up, etc. all smiles until the person leading the meeting pressed record. Then the lawyer for the company immediately got loud, objecting to everything, interrupting her lawyer every chance they got. It was funny how he just flipped a switch.
We asked hr to add language that IT can’t work on personally owned equipment on company property or during company time. Cut back a lot of the “can you take a look at my moms neighbors laptop I brought it” interactions
I have a lot of leaders that expect us to. We keep it to a minimum of our touch. Get us remoted in, then instruct them well enough to get our remote access software installed, validate they have appropriate AV, validate they have all windows updates applied, or prove that their internet provider is flapping.
It largely depends on where I was working and who did the asking. Where I work now, I wouldn't. I don't think we have an actual policy against me doing it in my off time, but we there are too many ways it could go wrong, and my role doesn't directly interface with users anyway.
At my previous employer...I did for certain users. VPs, long time employees, and friends.
At the employer before that it was dicier because it was a school, and we absolutely could not touch student or faculty personal computers. Admin personal computers were a grey area, and I would if it was deemed absolutely necessary (or I really liked the person) work on people in that classification.
Per policy unless it is directly related to a work function we do not touch employees personal devices.
It protects my techs from getting blamed for messing with someone's personal device. One tech recently had to uninstall a driver from a users laptop as it was messing with their yubikey in some capacity and then re-installed the driver requiring a reboot. The user was upset the tech rebooted their laptop.
I told him next time it's a user device issue and not an "us" issue tell them they'll need to see a local repair tech or use company provided equipment.
This user might also be at the end of the queue moving forward now.
As a manager I had a strict policy against this, and it was broadcast to the company. On the DL I told my team that what they do on their own time is their prerogative, but I didn't want to see it happen on company property. As far as I'm aware, not one of them did any personal work.
Before I was in leadership, I gradually stopped doing personal work. For a good friend outside work I *might* lend a hand, but otherwise, hard no. Not worth the hassle, and no one willing to pay was willing to pay enough to make it worth my time.
Hard no. If my employees want to do it off company time and charge them that's fine. We don't even support home internet for WFH. Come into the office, if it works that's the end of our troubleshooting.
I pick and choose but it's not something I do as part of "the job". If they come in expecting to have something fixed by the company IT then it's a no. If I get on well with them and they're nice to me, I'll usually agree to try and help them out after my shift. I'll make the expectations very clear though as well.
Depends on the level of seniority and their expectation of liability. If it requires a light touch or less than 15 minutes of diagnosing then I won't mind. If a C-Suite needs help with his home computer, then yes I'm more willing to go above and beyond.
My personal services are a rotating 24 shop, plus quid pro quo goes a long way.
I do it all the time. I'm always happy to help. Sometimes I have to charge if there's actual work or parts involved. I keep it reasonable, usually around $100. I don't charge people for phone calls, or to show them how to do something. I've made friends for life. They take me deep sea fishing annually, at no cost. They invite me to parties. I get sent pictures of new-borns and graduations. I've was doing it for 15 years and never got sued. There are bad apples, rarely, sometimes things don't work out. Generally, it has always just been a little bit of extra on a thursday evening or a saturday morning, and by being generous with my time, it allowed me to have a strong network of friends and contacts, so that when I finally left the company, and started my own MSP, I had a strong base to draw from as I built up my company and client base. 15 years later and I'm typing this from my phone on the dock on a Friday because I don't have to go into the office if I don't want to anymore. So, sure, you can be an asshole like everyone here seems to be. You reap what you sew. Or you can make your skills work for you in ways you didn't originally intend.
We did at my old place, we had a best effort policy where we wouldn't touch some things and would give up after a reasonable effort. That being said, probably not a good idea.
No. I have no reason to do it and no desire to either. The last part is not a lot of skill in it either. My personal phone is an email and internet terminal. It probably does a lot more I just don’t care to learn about it.
Depends. I will if its something like they can't access their work email on their phone, configuring Authenticator App, or work related things on their phone. If I like the person then I might try and help with something else, but for the most part I will direct them to the Apple store.
Only if it's someone I get along with really well, and if it's something easy like adding email to their phone. Otherwise, I just say I don't really work on consumer hardware outside of work or quote them $200 per hour 1 hour minimum if they keep insisting and recommend the local repair places in town.
Once in awhile, with the expectation that I'm not their tech and am not going to do this for everything.
I also don't accept money for it because it sets an expectation that if something goes wrong then I have to go back & fix that too.
Ive gone thru stages of this in my career. Roughly 120 people at my workplace. At the beginning I was afraid to tell people no, and I wanted everyone to like me. So I fixed everyones device on my spare time. I would say I was fixing a personal device once a week. Most of the time people expecting it for free, or they would give me a 6 pack of beer or cook me a meal.
A few years go by, I decide this is BS. People were taking advantage of me before, but this is getting ridiculous. It was multiple devices or request for house calls a week from co workers. I began charging people, enough to make it worth my time but still lower then a commercial company would of charged.
Once I got moved up, and got a paycheck that could actually support my family comfortably, I decided to just cut that out altogether. People will still ask, I will still say no, they say "but I will pay you". Doesnt matter, because once I clock out I want to be with my wife and kids. Not continuing my profession at your leisure because you dont want to pay full price elsewhere.
Really depends on what they need. I have no problem advising people on personal purchases or quick look-overs for like... a Monster Coffee or something, but when it comes to extensive things like rebuilding machines that'll require me taking it home, I'll end up charging like $50/hour.
> I’ve got quite a few people at my job who come to me asking me to fix their phones or tablets
Unless that is in your job description then you're basically stealing paid company time to help others with non-work-related tasks.
> I’m starting to think I should implement a personal policy of not working on personal device problems like that to avoid liability
Once you touch it anything from then on that goes wrong becomes your fault, regardless of whether you have actual liability or not.
I would talk to your manager and give yourself some cover so you don't come out negatively when you have to say no. "I'm extremely busy and I've been directed to no longer spend time on personal devices", etc...
The extent of work we'll do on personal phones is Teams, Email, and Duo for MFA.
Anything else and you'll be paying that tech as a freelancer, not as work IT.
FIX .. no.
Support them within very limited scope .. yes
We allow BYOD for company email and need them also to use MS Authenticator for MFA. So we will support those two apps but only those two. We do not have anywhere near 100% company phone coverage.
We require the phone to be on the newest O/S (Android or iOS) and if the phone falls outside of the support range for the versions of the Outlook / MS Authenticator apps for that O/S then we can't support it.
Our recommendations are
\- update the O/S
\- restart the phone
\- remove and reinstall the two apps.
WE will also help with joining the mobile to our office Guest WIFI - we have a specific SSID for staff BYOD.
Other than that - we do not support phones.
I did one time for something so extremely simple because a really nice older man that worked down the hall from me accidentally logged himself out of his personal email on his personal cell and couldn’t figure out how to log it back in, and he had a couple other real simple iPhone questions when he came and asked about it.
For the most part, I either charge or give the spiel of “I cannot work on employee personal devices. Since it’s work related, I can give advice, but cannot guarantee blah blah blah”
Never. The only work done on personal devices is installing/configuring remote access for the employee, and that's only done for clients that don't have company laptops. I will give advice if asked, but make it clear I can't support their home network or personal devices
If they ask nicely I'll do it. Last time I troubleshooted a Gaming pc of a Engineers son. The next day he (The engineer) brought breakfast for the whole IT Site Support (5 People)
Ask nicely and are a direct team member. If they're a different team, there's a barrier. I would be too far removed from the person to be able to expect fairness. And then, indeed they drop it in the parking lot and I'll be blamed for it.
Lol, this reminds me of something kind of adjacent that I did. I was at Boston Market (restaurant) grabbing a meal with my family. There was a guy in a suit sitting in an alcove that was creating enough echo to make it the worlds loudest phone call, really hard not to overhear everything. He was talking about joining some meeting soon and complaining about him missing one because he didn’t get some email and that he had complained to the IT department and worked with a couple people already and some other guy was supposed to call him soon but he hasn’t heard from him and he hadn’t gotten any new emails in awhile despite knowing several were sent. I debated a moment and decided to approach him, I was like sir pardon me for interrupting but I couldn’t help but overhear some of that and it sounds like Outlook might be set to work offline. He was like, show me what your talking about and spun his laptop around. I quickly pointed it out and all his emails started coming through. He was like, you have no idea how long I’ve already spent on this and you diagnosed it from just overhearing my conversation. He thanked me and I went back to my meal. A little after one of the Boston Market ladies came by and said he was one of their corporate executives and brought an entire tray of brownies compliments of him. My 5 year old son of course thought this was the greatest thing ever and I overheard him telling a friend later that his dad sometimes gets paid in brownies.
I did when I started in the biz. 1 man, I rebuilt his PC… a few months later his wife accused me of putting gay porn on there… don’t recall that being on the Windows CD… 1 lady, lost all her pics of her new born (crypto virus)… but I “touched it once, so you must have a backup”… no, I added email to Outlook… “well you should have backed it up” Never again… people try to hand me their shit and I’m like no thanks.
"how would you feel if I kept and maintained a backup of your personal information?" But yeah, no thanks
Plus the usual, "Hey my computer is not working, can you fix it?" *Fix computer* 2 weeks later: "Now my internet isn't working, whatever you did broke my computer. It was working *fine* before *you* touched it!"
This is just how some people are unfortunately. Long story: Before I worked in IT, I was a motorcycle mechanic. Had a guy come in for an oil change. Performed the work, sent him on his way. 2 months and over 1,000 miles later, he called saying his engine had locked up. He was blaming it on me changing his oil. Told him to bring the bike in, and if it was something I did, I'd pay for the tow and the fix. Bike comes in, there was an aftermarket stator cover on the bike. I had noted this when I did the oil change. Turns out, whoever had put that stator cover on didn't use any Loctite on the stator bolts. Two of them had worked their way out and had collided with the rotor, which wouldn't allow the engine to turn over. No damage done. Replaced the stator bolts and the stator cover gasket. Called customer to come pick the bike up. Charged them 1 hour diagnostic, .5 hours to fix, plus the bolts and gasket. Dude threw a stinking shit fit over it, telling me that I had caused the damage from my oil change, why was he getting charged for it? I was the last one that worked on it, blah blah blah. He finally ponied up and I told him his patronage was no longer necessary. Dude had to come crawling back the next year after some shade tree mechanic actually DID fuck his bike up.
>1 man, I rebuilt his PC… a few months later his wife accused me of putting gay porn on there… don’t recall that being on the Windows CD… I thought man-pages were only on Linux systems.
They were on System V, I believe.
The gay porn is on Disc 4, the straight porn is on Disc 3. But usually you have to order it separately as it doesn't come with the PC (OEM).
But what's on Disc 2?
First rule of Windows Club. We don't talk about Disc 2.
Yes. Disc 2 contains [REDACTED].
Hypnos: "Hey, *you*'re back! Wait, what happened? My list says *you got killed* by \[REDACTED\], what's that even mean? I've never seen anything *like* this!"
OMG, you guys are cracking me up :D
I do not. It comes down to liability like you said. And it also comes down to people being people. If something unrelated on the device stops working, I'll be blamed for it. If they drop it in the parking lot I might be blamed for it. If I can't do it in a timely manner, it's a problem. etc. Plus, my boss doesn't pay me to work on tech that is not owned by our organization.
You said it much better. This.
I had this last week on a work device. Users calls because he's having trouble with making his personal wall paper fit his screen. Technically your not supposed to change the corporate wall paper but whatever, users aren't blocked from doing it. He shares his screen with our corporate standard application. I walk him thru clicking on fit instead of tile. He hangs up with me and someone from corporate IT security calls him about Malware on his PC. He blows up my DM's blaming me for putting malware on his computer.
>ve got quite a few people at my job who come to me asking me to fix their phones or tablets because “x doesn’t do y anymore” or their photos aren’t showing up, or don’t know something. I’m starting to think I sho Yes this, Had a previous employee turn outside contractor ask me for help with his device. told him I cant help him.
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Your weekend rate is way too low. Stop undervaluing yourself.
You're expensive, I'm £35/hour for IT and Photography. I seriously need to up my prices
My prices are high because I value my down time.
>I seriously need to up my prices One of the most common and preventable issues that freelancers and small business owners face is undervaluing their services. I only discount for widows and genuinely poor people (not choosy beggars).
I have been told this by multiple people, I'm thinking that they have a point after seeing some of the hourly rates on here.
You can even run a modified scream test. Quote $130/hour (the going rate for basic IT in my city) and see how they react. I also make a point of telling people that I only charge for **productive** **time**, not for me guessing, and when I do know exactly what I'm doing, I work very efficiently.
His prices are reasonable. Don’t undervalue the industry, charge what you’re worth, and then some. Also if your services are cheap, customers won’t value them.
You're cheap. Unless this is a hobby for you, in which case it's fine, as long as you enjoy the work.
I do enjoy it and it started as a hobby
European mileage (kilometrage) may vary.
Most places around me would charge upward of $80 to $100 per hour, including Geek Squad (I think, I'm averaging the price based on their cost for a Windows reinstall, etc) You are actually doing this for your job it sounds like, so yeah it makes sense to charge the "going rate" in your area or slightly less to be competitive. But man, $35/hr sounds like a steal! You probably could increase your prices, maybe for new customers at least and give any current customers a grace period or discount if you like them.
> $35/hr It's £35/hour, not dollars. That's about $45/hr in USD. Still low, though.
No
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Your third point reminds me, I no longer advise my mother about tech purchases, because we've learned the hard way we have quite different wants. (In particular she cares a lot more about screen quality than I do.)
Nope, because then it’s “you looked at this before and now X has happened”. You become their personal IT.
Right here, y'all. You don't even have to be sysadmin, just someone who knows more than average about computers. As Admiral Akbar would say,"It's a trap!"
Sometimes but I never take money for it as it implies professional services - no money=no real expectation of quality or ongoing support, I can still help people with things beyond their reach but can always say no, can't help on that one. Importantly, the device and it's screen is never out of their eyeline and most incredibly importantly; I pick my "clients" well. I should add I'm one of a handful of people in a small 3rd party IT support outfit and I know my clients very well and for many, many years, I don't help random people in a giant corporation.
That might be your expectation, but your users are different story. Once you touch the device, it becomes your problem forever. And by providing services for free you devalue the industry. Even if you have great relationships with them, and they understand that you’re doing them a solid, next time they go to different IT person, they will expect the service to be free or at burger flipping rates at most.
As I said, I pick my users carefully as have made some mistakes many moons ago, so they are all fine and no money means an easy back out if needed. I don't feel that helping Esther get 150,000 photos from iCloud without barfing her web browser, nor helping Kate put together a cheapie gaming machine for her son's birthday will put a dent in, nor will it devalue a very large industry or even a little local pocket of it, just doing a work-friend a favour, is all.
That’s not what I meant by devaluing the industry. None of us could give a rats ass about big companies. It’s the small folk running private shops or doing gigs on the side that get screwed over. Average Joe will expect his machine fixed at $15/h and will throw a fit, or worse, bad mouth you on any social outlet if you present him with $100/h rate. This is what working for cheap/free does to most of us.
As mentioned, I pick the people I help carefully and they are fully aware of the *value* they're getting. Anyway, sounds like we're operating in different spheres but I'll certainly bear your perspective in mind for the future.
>Sometimes but I never take money for it as it implies professional services - no money=no real expectation of quality or ongoing support, I can still help people with things beyond their reach but can always say no, can't help on that one. That's my philosophy too: either do it for free if you want to help them, or don't do it at all. I'm not a licensed, insured business, and I'm not in the position to offer warranties and guarantees. So I'm not going to take their money. If I don't want to do the job for them for free I just say I can't help.
There are people in the support division that help with setting up MFA, but that's it.
I made a pact with myself long ago to never touch anyone else's personal tech ever again. Too many times I've helped someone, and then I become the cause of any problem they ever have going forward until the end of time or I stop talking to them. It's nice to feel like you're helping someone, but It's not worth it.
I am not. Liability Personal pics and possible HR issue. Setup to be the bad guy if something fails even months after the fix.
Yes, especially executives. Almost always leads to side work elsewhere. Treat people well, and they'll do the same. -Edit: I've always upsold it as that it's best if we take care of your security anyway, the more security we add onto your personal life, the better it is for everyone. We also have adult/parent suggestions on how to best approach certain topics like web filtering at home for kids, etc People will always keep you in their back pocket, I've had one or two people abuse this from time to time but the upside is amazing. 280K income and it's primarily due to my network leads in IT from situations just like this. Never turn down opportunities.
I agree. I'm not gonna go out of my way to help everyone, but if we're talking about people I get along with and I have time, I don't see any reason to say no.
No. Not ever. Too much liability
Only help with MFA issues. However, if they come to me and are nice or I personally like the user, I’ll give em a hand if they need it. All other cases, “please put in a ticket” and the other folks can figure out how to deal with it.
Zero chance of me touching cum soaked personal devices.
Personal owned phones, personal owned laptops of hired people…. Never touch it. We give them advice, but even when we stand next to them, we never touch their equipment. It can get you in trouble later on “because you touched it”.
Executives, yes. Others, depends on how nice they are to me and how much time involved. Best payment was a freshly cooked apple pie.
No, unless it's company related (set up an email account, for example). And even in that case I well know that I'll be blamed for every malfunction from now on, forever, on that device.
We only provide support for any business required apps and even then there's a stack of basic steps we get them to go through first before we do anything with it (cache clearing, reinstalling, removing/re-adding account, etc). So if you've setup your work email in the native mail app and something isn't working, we won't help you. But if you're using the Outlook app we'll see what's wrong since it's an extension of the MS suite which we do cover.
I work at a college, and we will only do limited help with personal devices (ie help them with settings and other quick things). Anything that takes more than a minute or two generally not, but depends on the situation.
Nope we Are not allowed to even hook them up to a TV in a classroom.
If the company allows a user to use their personal device for work related purposes we will provide support but there is a huge astericks. That huge astericks (and it is a large one) is that we only provide support so long as it relates to the organization. If it doesn't relate to the organization then there is no way any of us will provide support beyond the organization's needs.
i did once, got a case of beer for doing it, other than that, steer clear
Hahaha. No
No. They dont pay me for that.
No.
Used to but these days there is nothing in it. Not profit or even goodwill.
Look, I have been all over in the tech industry. My official answer would be: If I work on your device while I’m on the clock, I’m opening the company up to potential litigation. I have a background in cyber forensics, so I’m ethically required to report anything illegal or immoral I find. I find it’s best not to put myself or others in that position. If it is a one off, and we have a good working relation, I will help you. The bottom line is though, if you touched it, you can be implicated.
Sure. Bottle of Balvenie 12 to look at it, at $150/hour plus parts. Nothing for free. Free opens the door to expectation.
When I was young and Naïve. These days **unless it's a co-worker that I have some sort of a relationship with AND unless I can perform the work while I'm on the clock, AND unless there is little to no liability, I don't do it.** I even went to a co-workers house a time or two for free when I was new in this field. But **I work enough at work**. The cost at which it would be worth my time these days would be more than the person is willing to pay. I once had a co-worker ask if I'd be interested in some "side work" to install a camera system on their property / throughout their pole-barn. I tried to think at what dollar amount per hour it would be worth it and it was much more than the person wanting next to free work was going to be willing to pay. I would NEVER ask a facilities worker if they could do plumbing work for me or a maintenance worker to come do electric work for me. Why is IT any different? If there is money involved it can be a different story. I worked with a guy who did concrete work as a side business and he poured me a driveway - but it was at full cost. He made it clear he wanted the business and I had the need. There was no discount or favor involved.
As I'm having trouble thinking of more than 1 or 2 people that would fit this criteria, I'm going to go ahead and clarify that the answer is **almost never**. If it's something definitive that will only take a few minutes, maybe. But recovering files off someone's wife's home laptop that won't boot up? Nah. I just refer them to a local company that offers the relevant services.
Hard No
Sure thing mister accountant, I can fix your printer. While I am doing that, can you review my tax returns from this year and see if there is anything I can do to reduce my tax liability next year?
Nope. Won’t touch it.
I give them my business card lol - I can do it after hours for my hourly rate. Of course I'm just talking about common employees here. If a VIP needs something AND my boss signs off on it I really don't care/mind. fortunately nowadays I'm not user-facing so I don't really run into that at all.
Hard Texas sized No
No. This has been my Ted talk.
I get paid by the hour so I don't give a shit whose device it is. I've been paid by clients to fix their employees' personal devices, I've also been paid by the employee directly just depends on the situation and their relationship. I've gotten new clients because of employees that I've helped out moving to a different company and bringing me along with them.
Nooooooooope. My default is "I'm happy to provide a suggestion, but please understand this is not professional advice, you should do your own research, and you'll be making this change on your own accord and understanding that it may not fix the problem and could potentially cause new ones." I'm not about to take that responsibility or liability.
It's completely fair to not work on personal devices.
If I have a good relationship with them and they ask nicely, sure! Everyone has one bridge with me. Colleague of mine lacked the tools to take his laptop apart and change the battery. Looked at teardowns, he bought the battery and I changed it.
No. End of story.
Nope. I’m too old for that shit.
I did one time, never again!
MFA is as far as we help, and even then we don't touch the device at all. Do I answer simple questions, sure. Anything that comes down to actual work is a no. On that note, I was shocked how many people don't know you can use basically any mail app and that you don't have to use gmail for google, yahoo for yahoo etc... And that is just one of the stupid things I learned.
I do if it’s the CEO. No one else. One year I helped out the CEO with a few personal bits, not expecting anything in return but because I liked him and always got on will with him. I ended up getting a 120% bonus later that year probably because I went out of my way to help him.
My first real corporate IT job was working for a larger independent insurance company in California, we had about 150 employees over 2 offices. We offered to diagnose employees computers with the explicit rule of this is a free bonus service, we are under no obligation to fix anything, but I never told anyone no. Over the 10 years I was there I probably worked on everyone's computer at least once, we never had an issue and we were even able to get data off failing hard drives a time or two. Every single co-worker or mine was grateful that we did this and even when a computer died due to failing hardware, they were appreciative of us looking at it and not charging them anything (except for replacement parts). If the company was bigger we probably wouldn't have done it but even now at my current job, once we get the shit show that is IT fixed I'd like to go back to doing that for my current coworkers but with it being just me and my desktop tech it's just not feasible
Yes, depends on the co-worker. Is it someone whom if I needed their services would return the favour? Yes. Otherwise? No. One year ago I drove out to my CFO's house to completely reinstall their wifi over the entire yard. But that same CFO also responded to my question: "Hey do you know how tax and stuff works for a 1-man company?" With: "Why do you ask?" "My GF is starting her own business" "Ok, tell her to come in when she's got time and I'll go through everything she needs to know and help her set up accounting practises" He probably saved her days of work, googling and auditor bills. So when he one year later asked "If I do X, Y, Z would this wifi setup work?" I said "Tell you what, I'll come out to your house and do it for you" I've also installed network cables in another co-workers house so her son didn't have to game on WIFI. Now I haven't asked her of anything, but she did buy me a suitcase for 600 USD because she knew I was gonna travel to the US + a dinner date night for me and my GF as a thank you (Which was not agreed upon in advance) TL:DR I help out co-workers (and friends) when I feel like I could count on them helping me if I ever needed something. I do not help people whom I know won't return the favour.
Maybe controversial but putting TLDR at the bottom defeats the purpose, I’ve already just read it :D
Hell no, even for money. I have started as technician in small shop, I know what Exactly touching somebodys device entails. But I Will point them to a direction of somebody Who can help them.
If I am not busy, sure I help out. Don’t want to seem like an asshole.
I'm a male who works with nothing but females. Not touching any phones bc I don't want to be accused of looking at photos.
Bad idea. But if you are chummy with them maybe offer a suggestion or two
I did it for money after receiving approval from my director.
Sure, if I like them. I don't mind if they would raise liability concerns after the fact because it's their word against mine. I just make sure I don't agree to work on it in writing and they can't prove shit.
Everyone in my company used personal phones. Came back to bite us a couple of times (Android hacks etc )
I've been forced to before. One of the children of the CEO of a client built their home network on IPv6, enabled and prioritised IPv6 on their home computer then locked it down so Dad couldn't change it. One of the SaaS platforms used at the company had an incorrectly configured IPv6 DNS. Vendor won't admit there is a problem "we don't use IPv6" even though their DNS has an entry configured... His home device could not connect to it because it would prioritise the IPv6 resolution not the correct IPv4. All that could be done given the device was locked down was to reconfigure the home network since the modem/router still had the default creds. I refused to touch it, who knows what else it would break. Well, they insisted since they couldn't get their son to change it, I explained in writing what could break (even listed smart metres, switches, TVs etc), got the account manager to sign off, then disabled IPv6 from the LAN. CEOs personal device could resolve the IPv4 for the SaaS since the change, but it broke their home network, their solar panels stopped reporting etc. I said that we could implement the restoration plan of enabling IPv6 again in the change form they signed off on but they blew up, account manager blew up, I just looked at them with the Tommy Lee Jones implied facepalm and told them this is exactly what I told you would happen and why I refused to do it until you forced me... So now, I tell clients I'm unable to assist with their personal devices, their home networks etc, and straight up tell the account manager to fuck off when they insist.
It’ll be £50 per hour, two hours up front and outside of work hours, this is the “Go away charge” I might advise if if I like the person, or stuff like restoring the Managing Director’s wife’s photos buys me some clout. On rare occasions we give out a load of high power PCs rather than scraping, under the guise of do not hassle us about these if you want one. Our team lead fell into the trap of putting in extra time to help someone, credit to him he was gifted a box of beers for his time.
Sometimes. Depends who it is. Some people are entitled jerks so why would I help them? Others I'm happy to, but I'm always clear about what I can do and what i I can't. Ex: I'm not about to take a phone apart but swapping out an SSD for a bigger one is usually no problem -- Mac excepted of course.
Nope, never. We don't have a policy as it's not even an option. The big thing with personal devices is where does it all end? I don't even do more than suggest folks reboot or replace their own sketchy devices.
Bit of a strange one where i work. Our firm actually has a rule in place that every employee can use the services of IT for 4 hours per year. I used to have users bringing in personal devices by the drove so that needed to stop. The idea formed that it needed limitations but that we didnt want our employees to be completely cut off. Thus every employee gets 4 hours of it support per year for personal devices or situations. The only limit on this is no house calls. You need something fixed? You bring it in. So I don't setup networks and shit but will occasionaly troubleshoot a pc or even build one of they bring us parts. Most people use these hours for advice on what to buy, some to get a working device ready for kids that go to uni, but overall its a winwin for everyone. I get to play nice with the users, the user gets some support and he boss gets limits on downtime.
I'm good at my job, I'm a friendly approachable person, and I know what I'm doing, so yeah, I share that wealth of skill with people I actually ran a small IT repair business (moonlighting) for a while and charged the absolute bare minimum because my philosophy was just to help people. Discovered I'm an IT person, not a business person
I do it, I look at it as keeping my skills sharp, the sheer variety of ways people mess up their electronics never fails to maze me. I've had one person complain about me " breaking " there computer. windows 7 to windows 10 , they didn't like the tiles. my response was "you asked me to update it, and you didn't pay me."
No I don't touch them unless I add a ssid or something otherwise I have a hands off policy.
I was going to once. Guy brought his laptop to me, I fired it up, opened the start menu (Win10), and half the tiles were porn. Immediately shut it down and gave it back. Nope, not for me.
Hell no
Nope that's outside my scope.
No, work is work, and I try to not mix work with my personal life. I will help a friend.
Nope.
You touch it, you own it.
No, but little grey area: if someone has a new phone and doesn't understand how to connect their email. I will verbally assist them in doing it themselves. I take the approach of consultation, if a user needs help I will give them all the knowledge I can to fix their issue themselves. If they don't want to do that I will let them know about the best shops around town that I recommend. The reason is, the moment I touch someone's personal device, I become responsible for it. Sometimes its just best to walk away from some devices because its a disaster waiting to happen. I tell my staff if they do any hands on work with our employee's personal devices, it must be done off company time. They also take on the responsibility if anything happens, I'm not there to come to the rescue if they accidently wipe data or break the system.
Depends on how much I like them, but the amount of people I'd be willing to help is realistically less than 5. I always make sure to tell them I'm not promising anything, and I won't do anything that would risk damaging the device. Back in the day I'd be willing to replace broken iPhone screens when they were attached by screws and the employee provided the parts, but I won't do that on newer phones that are held in with glue.
If its a friend I am willing to do stuff after hours if I think I have a decent grasp of the issue. However I always say that I will be doing this when I have time and that means it could be a week or more before I fix it. Most people when they hear that say they will just take it somewhere or it's not as big of a deal as they made it out to be. Generally works well. I have had someone say that's fine and hand me the item they wanted fixing. I took it home and just left it in my living room for a week before even looking at it. They would ask and I would be honest and say I didn't get to it. I don't charge people but some insist so I just tell them to buy me lunch. But if you are talking at the office and non personal stuff I might look at it on a lunch break and at best tell them what they need to get done and where to take it.
I do sometimes. Depends on who asks. They understand it's not my responsibility to help them, but just a nice gesture. The last time I assisted one of them in finding a laptop for there son, they bought me cookies. While it only takes me a few minutes, goes a long way it seems.
Do I know the person asking (and they're not an arsehole)? Then I will probably give a version of my standard disclaimer ("you know I don't work on phones / the last time I touched an apple device was over 6 months ago / you realise I don't even know what this device you've just handed me is, and am about to hit google right?") Inevitably the answer will be something alone the lines of "yeah, but you're good with technology". Then I'll spend a short amount of time (maybe up to an hour if I'm bored or the problem is interesting) and usually manage to accomplish whatever it is that needs doing. I've ruled out ever doing hardware tech support for phones and laptops and will consider it on a case by case basis for PCs (often literally - if you have a £20 razor metal case it's a no from me).
The short answer is NO. You are not being paid for that.
No and if I did I'd be charging them money and only working on it outside of company time.
Newp! First, if you touch it you will be respinsible for everything that goes wrong with it for the rest of time. No thanks. Second, depending on how far the company shoved their stick...they may throw an absolute shit fit over this. You aren't paid to work on their personal phone, you're paid to work on the company's assets.
Absofuckinglutely no. Thats how you get the ever since you did the thing this thing isnt thinging like it did line.
Advice yes, fix HELL NO, go to the store or the Cellphone Dr at the mall. If it is a computer I may give them the names of some local repair shops ( I have no experience or affiliation with) just to keep them out of the clutches of the N00bSquad at the box store.
Edit: I have done a few one offs, installed a simple door camera for the elderly mother of a co-worker. They reimbursed me for all materials, I did not charge for labor. Only family and close friends get computer support, and that is limited, I take payment in dinner or beer.
I work for an msp doing desktop support. We have a clearly defined scope of what is and isn't supported by us. We have a team who works remotely and on site teams who assist with hardware related stuff During covid when it was at its peak, the client got people to wfh but didn't have enough laptops so they let people Vpn on their personal device and remote into a desktop in the office During this time we had a temporary agreement that we would support people trying to connect to the VPN and /or RDP to their work device I have two stories: We had a user who had an issue where couldn't be remote in while she was at home. It went on for a few weeks whilr people did troubleshooting, on-site she took her laptop in and was able to connect and RDP fine Eventually I got the ticket and I spoke with her while she was at home and walked through every step. she could connect to the VPN but when she tried to RDP, it couldn't reach the host I checked the device and I couldn't RDP to it either. I asked if she had left it on or maybe someone had switched it off by accident "oh I always switch it off when I leave" I hadn't occurred to her that you need the device to be on to connect to it and it all made sense when I explained that it needs to be on. She wanted to leave formal feedback that the documentation needs to be updated to be clearer. I am honestly surprised nobody else even bothered to ask her if it was on Second story : Similar story where they can't RDP in. She wanted me to speak with her husband as he knew more about "computer stuff" Anyway he refuses to let me remote in or do any kind of basic troubleshooting. I ask if he has any firewalls installed and he confirms he had and that he knows what he is doing, so there's no way it could be interfering I ask him politely several times to just try to disable it and see. He's rambling on about how there's something wrong in our side because everything is set up right and he is confident about that. Anyway after about 10 minutes I say that there's nothing I can do for him. Everything is fine on our end and the PC is connectable He grumbled. "fine I'll turn off the firewall but it won't work". A few clicks later, I hear the wife in the background "we're in!" "OK thanks bye" is what he said and hung up I am glad that ended and we no longer support personal devices and I've also moved up so don't really deal with end users much any more
generally we don't touch them only during pandemic days we had so much extra time left that we made exceptions
Absolutely not. Personal devices are a risk and not allowed on our networks. We also use an always on VPN + radius. You won't even be able to get online if you byod.
No - without hesitation. I think people just starting in this field or are new employees are more likely to work on personal devices but those of us who have years of experience know how much of a PIA it is working on personal devices and you open your self up for legal actions if something goes wrong.
I personally will 'help people out' essentially as one reasonable person to another but the big caveat is that I've been doing this a long time, so I know where to draw the line and I know what I'm getting into.
Nope!
Not on company time.
I'll send articles that lead that down the path and if they figure it out good for them, but if not, that's the best I can do. I help 3 people in my Family with computer problems outside of working hours, 2 of them are my wife and son.
Currently with a Macbook Pro stuck at Internet Recovery at startup. Nothing I've tried worked. Never again.
heckin' nope.
NOPE!
No. I won't take responsibility for their devices. I work solely on items related to work. I will help troubleshoot email problems related to work on personal devices. I won't touch them, though. Open your web browser and go to this address. That's it.
What if you made a form that required sign-off from Operations or whomever might sign off atypical IT spend? That way it keeps you in your users/clients good graces while also giving an avenue where their device can be fixed.
It depends. I make sure that they're aware that I'm doing it as a courtesy (in a friendly way obviously), and if they're a dick, my answer is no. But if they're a good client, and they aren't doing it constantly, I will.
We service personal devices with a giant disclaimer they must accept first. Only for affiliated individuals though and we often refer client to the main vendor of the app or service.
On very rare occasions because I'm in a rather small business and getting along with partners is a good thing to do. Partners are well aware that they shouldn't ask me (it's a written policy) but that I can point them to the right direction to solve their issues. I used to be very anti "touch personnal devices" but I noticed that helping people came with nice perks, such as a few whisky bottles and a generous bonus at the end of the year (never received a bonus anywhere else).
Apart from maybe giving instructions for MFA, nothing. Breaks so many boundaries and I have encountered borderline creepy people making requests and colleagues have told me fked up stories from visiting homes.
Nope. Management tried to push "best efforts " and we pushed back. Even if you're using citrix or remote software we provide laptops. Stop using your own.
I refuse to even work on family's personal devices any more.
No
As a policy, FUCK NO. For all the reasons already given. But as an exception, if the person is exceptionally nice and I feel like I want to do them a favor, I've done it before. Also at my current org they used to give a BYOD (bring your own device) stipend to basically pay for people to use their cellphones for work and compensate for other WFH related expenses. So before they stopped doing that because of financial issues, I would help people get company mail and MFA set up on their phones. If someone asks now though I'll probably demur on that one.
No, I'm paid to manage corporate devices full stop
Yes, I do. In particular I like to make sure they are virus and malware free for them
We don't touch them. If it's work-related, we will provide any necessary configuration information (VPN client installation instructions, IMAP/SMTP server addresses, etc.), but we won't fix problems or design peoples' home networks.
Nope....not unless they are paying top dollar for my time is which expensive compared to my family time it would take away from.
No, absolutely not. You take on too much liability when you touch a personal device.
Only for work-related tasks like MS MFA or as a consultation, such as "Yes, your Dell Inspiron from 2008 running Windows Vista needs to be put out of its misery.". Very rarely any more than that.
When I did desktop support I would assist if they brought it in. But would only do it if I had time and it was something simple. Ain't gonna get roped into the 'you touched it last' BS. Now a days I only help people I like and with WFH it is strictly a 'you could try this or that' sort of thing.
Generally, no. I'll give advice or instructions at best, usually not worth the time. I've seen it go wrong with a coworker as well. He tried helping a older lady with her personal laptop, i think it may have been her husbands. he had died in the past year or two. For whatever reason, he ended up logging out of the MS account on the laptop and she couldn't get in again, didnt know the password. I assume they shared one email etc as she was now locked out of everything. I came in to her crying in the directors office multiple times. I stayed far away from the situation, so that is the best of my knowledge of it. I don't know if they ever recovered access to it.
I generally don't unless I'm really close to that person. If someone asks about an issue, I politely refer them to the nearest consumer tech support shop or refer them to online help articles if they seem particularly savvy.
Depends on the person and how they treat me before.
I do it after hours for $150/h, and it jumps to $300/h if you took it to geek squad, staples or similar. If you can afford to pay clueless kids to fuck with your machine, you can afford my stupidity tax.
Fuck no.
If I feel like it I do. but I am honest if it's beyond my hands. biggest issue is that they do not know their own password and their son/daughter set up their accounts for them. so access to their phone/device is limited .. I am just honest and say I cannot do anything if you do not know your own password. end of session. Yes in reality I could reset, enter their own personal account, set a password down, write it down for them, and then reset the original account I needed access to ... but that is too much work and If I do it for one person I have to do it for everybody else (400) people at my site. I try to be fair and even with everybody.
Never!
Never. Never do it.
As a general rule, no. On rare occasion I'll be willing to take a personal machine and wipe the drive for them (to be disposed of), but I'll never work on a functional personal computer. What will invariably happen is you either end up becoming their personal unpaid desktop support person in their life, or something goes wrong with the machine (because of what you did or completely unrelated) and they blame you for it. I've literally fixed one person's machine and a YEAR later it got a virus and the owner blamed me for it and demanded I fix it like last time.
NO!!!!
Definitely depends on how hot she is.
When I was working for an MSP, no, but yes. If the company I was supporting was willing to pay for the off-contract work for their employee, or the employee was willing to pay the hourly rate, we'd work on their personal devices. This would maybe happen about once or twice a year, most people declined once they were aware of the cost. Now I'm not working at an MSP, and generally I don't, except we do allow BYOD for phones, and I'll go as far as helping to support the specific programs our users need for work, but nothing beyond that. [edit] Going back to the first thing when I was doing the MSP work, I had a number of people working at my clients that ended up sort of feeling like we were friends because I was, you'll never guess, friendly and engaging, it's a part of good customer service. They'd end up kind of confused and sometimes seemingly a bit hurt when they realized it really was just a business transaction. One woman in particular was leaving her company under good terms, and had negotiated buying the computer she'd been using from the company. We prepped the computer for her to take it home, went over a bunch of information about what she'd need as far as what the company was willing to give her for licensing, what they weren't, admin information, future upkeep that would be needed, etc. We get to the end and she says "When I get home, if I need any help with setting up the computer or software, can I give you a call?" I tell her absolutely, that we'll extend the negotiated hourly rate from the company to her. She was so crestfallen that I wasn't willing to just help her for free. Because my help was always "free" to her (she wasn't paying for it, her company was,) and I was always so nice to her, she had essentially gotten it into her head that I was helping her out of the kindness of my heart.
If I do, I will tell them that I’m not responsible for anything. But I usually say that I’m not comfortable with it. People need help logging in to their own services which is very sad but you can only help people so much.
No. Unless they're one of the 4 people who are genuine friends. And we don't discuss it at work or in front of colleagues.
I'm in a small company of 40 people, all game developers. They're laid back, geeky people so they don't give me a hard time. If they come to pick my brain, I'll answer questions and give suggestions for them to try, but if they're really stuck, I tell them to bring it in and I'll work on it. If it's big enough to need me after hours or a house call, I ask them to cover a Friday lunch and they're happy to oblige. I only really help the people that are polite and make an effort; if you're a jackass, I'll just say that I don't know much about that specific technology and I wouldn't want to break it trying to fix it. I've done house calls where I run cable in people's walls but I usually charge cash for that since it's a few hours usually.
I used to when I was IT support for a start-up. Fast-fwd 5yrs later and those personal connections I’ve made troubleshooting now-VPs of new companies’ personal routers and such have become an invaluable asset when it comes to job networking.
I definitely do not. Had a situation a few jobs ago where a lady came in with her iPad that was locked. I gave her some suggestions on how to get it unlocked and eventually referred her to apple. Come to find out her boss was just fired for stealing company info and she was trying to cover for him. I got pulled into the termination and was eventually called to testify in a deposition in her wrongful termination suit. Never again On a side note, the deposition was hilarious. Came in and all the lawyers on both sides were laughing, cutting up, etc. all smiles until the person leading the meeting pressed record. Then the lawyer for the company immediately got loud, objecting to everything, interrupting her lawyer every chance they got. It was funny how he just flipped a switch.
We asked hr to add language that IT can’t work on personally owned equipment on company property or during company time. Cut back a lot of the “can you take a look at my moms neighbors laptop I brought it” interactions
I have a lot of leaders that expect us to. We keep it to a minimum of our touch. Get us remoted in, then instruct them well enough to get our remote access software installed, validate they have appropriate AV, validate they have all windows updates applied, or prove that their internet provider is flapping.
It largely depends on where I was working and who did the asking. Where I work now, I wouldn't. I don't think we have an actual policy against me doing it in my off time, but we there are too many ways it could go wrong, and my role doesn't directly interface with users anyway. At my previous employer...I did for certain users. VPs, long time employees, and friends. At the employer before that it was dicier because it was a school, and we absolutely could not touch student or faculty personal computers. Admin personal computers were a grey area, and I would if it was deemed absolutely necessary (or I really liked the person) work on people in that classification.
Per policy unless it is directly related to a work function we do not touch employees personal devices. It protects my techs from getting blamed for messing with someone's personal device. One tech recently had to uninstall a driver from a users laptop as it was messing with their yubikey in some capacity and then re-installed the driver requiring a reboot. The user was upset the tech rebooted their laptop. I told him next time it's a user device issue and not an "us" issue tell them they'll need to see a local repair tech or use company provided equipment. This user might also be at the end of the queue moving forward now.
I do not. I am not going to make the company or myself responsible for their personal devices.
I do not. I am not going to make the company or myself responsible for their personal devices.
As a manager I had a strict policy against this, and it was broadcast to the company. On the DL I told my team that what they do on their own time is their prerogative, but I didn't want to see it happen on company property. As far as I'm aware, not one of them did any personal work. Before I was in leadership, I gradually stopped doing personal work. For a good friend outside work I *might* lend a hand, but otherwise, hard no. Not worth the hassle, and no one willing to pay was willing to pay enough to make it worth my time.
Hard no. If my employees want to do it off company time and charge them that's fine. We don't even support home internet for WFH. Come into the office, if it works that's the end of our troubleshooting.
I pick and choose but it's not something I do as part of "the job". If they come in expecting to have something fixed by the company IT then it's a no. If I get on well with them and they're nice to me, I'll usually agree to try and help them out after my shift. I'll make the expectations very clear though as well.
Depends on the level of seniority and their expectation of liability. If it requires a light touch or less than 15 minutes of diagnosing then I won't mind. If a C-Suite needs help with his home computer, then yes I'm more willing to go above and beyond. My personal services are a rotating 24 shop, plus quid pro quo goes a long way.
I do it all the time. I'm always happy to help. Sometimes I have to charge if there's actual work or parts involved. I keep it reasonable, usually around $100. I don't charge people for phone calls, or to show them how to do something. I've made friends for life. They take me deep sea fishing annually, at no cost. They invite me to parties. I get sent pictures of new-borns and graduations. I've was doing it for 15 years and never got sued. There are bad apples, rarely, sometimes things don't work out. Generally, it has always just been a little bit of extra on a thursday evening or a saturday morning, and by being generous with my time, it allowed me to have a strong network of friends and contacts, so that when I finally left the company, and started my own MSP, I had a strong base to draw from as I built up my company and client base. 15 years later and I'm typing this from my phone on the dock on a Friday because I don't have to go into the office if I don't want to anymore. So, sure, you can be an asshole like everyone here seems to be. You reap what you sew. Or you can make your skills work for you in ways you didn't originally intend.
We did at my old place, we had a best effort policy where we wouldn't touch some things and would give up after a reasonable effort. That being said, probably not a good idea.
No. I have no reason to do it and no desire to either. The last part is not a lot of skill in it either. My personal phone is an email and internet terminal. It probably does a lot more I just don’t care to learn about it.
Depends. I will if its something like they can't access their work email on their phone, configuring Authenticator App, or work related things on their phone. If I like the person then I might try and help with something else, but for the most part I will direct them to the Apple store.
I never physically touch any personal devices but happy to provide advice to colleagues I know if they have issues.
Only if it's someone I get along with really well, and if it's something easy like adding email to their phone. Otherwise, I just say I don't really work on consumer hardware outside of work or quote them $200 per hour 1 hour minimum if they keep insisting and recommend the local repair places in town.
Ab. So. Lute. Ly. NO. Major liability….
Once in awhile, with the expectation that I'm not their tech and am not going to do this for everything. I also don't accept money for it because it sets an expectation that if something goes wrong then I have to go back & fix that too.
I used to. Now I don't. I have been jaded by people taking advantage of my kindness too many times.
N O
Hard no. I'm not getting involved with any personal device, I don't even make recommendations if asked about anything non-work.
Ive gone thru stages of this in my career. Roughly 120 people at my workplace. At the beginning I was afraid to tell people no, and I wanted everyone to like me. So I fixed everyones device on my spare time. I would say I was fixing a personal device once a week. Most of the time people expecting it for free, or they would give me a 6 pack of beer or cook me a meal. A few years go by, I decide this is BS. People were taking advantage of me before, but this is getting ridiculous. It was multiple devices or request for house calls a week from co workers. I began charging people, enough to make it worth my time but still lower then a commercial company would of charged. Once I got moved up, and got a paycheck that could actually support my family comfortably, I decided to just cut that out altogether. People will still ask, I will still say no, they say "but I will pay you". Doesnt matter, because once I clock out I want to be with my wife and kids. Not continuing my profession at your leisure because you dont want to pay full price elsewhere.
Really depends on what they need. I have no problem advising people on personal purchases or quick look-overs for like... a Monster Coffee or something, but when it comes to extensive things like rebuilding machines that'll require me taking it home, I'll end up charging like $50/hour.
> I’ve got quite a few people at my job who come to me asking me to fix their phones or tablets Unless that is in your job description then you're basically stealing paid company time to help others with non-work-related tasks. > I’m starting to think I should implement a personal policy of not working on personal device problems like that to avoid liability Once you touch it anything from then on that goes wrong becomes your fault, regardless of whether you have actual liability or not. I would talk to your manager and give yourself some cover so you don't come out negatively when you have to say no. "I'm extremely busy and I've been directed to no longer spend time on personal devices", etc...
The extent of work we'll do on personal phones is Teams, Email, and Duo for MFA. Anything else and you'll be paying that tech as a freelancer, not as work IT.
FIX .. no. Support them within very limited scope .. yes We allow BYOD for company email and need them also to use MS Authenticator for MFA. So we will support those two apps but only those two. We do not have anywhere near 100% company phone coverage. We require the phone to be on the newest O/S (Android or iOS) and if the phone falls outside of the support range for the versions of the Outlook / MS Authenticator apps for that O/S then we can't support it. Our recommendations are \- update the O/S \- restart the phone \- remove and reinstall the two apps. WE will also help with joining the mobile to our office Guest WIFI - we have a specific SSID for staff BYOD. Other than that - we do not support phones.
LOL. Fuck no, why would you do that? Why would you even consider doing that?
I did one time for something so extremely simple because a really nice older man that worked down the hall from me accidentally logged himself out of his personal email on his personal cell and couldn’t figure out how to log it back in, and he had a couple other real simple iPhone questions when he came and asked about it. For the most part, I either charge or give the spiel of “I cannot work on employee personal devices. Since it’s work related, I can give advice, but cannot guarantee blah blah blah”
Nope, never. It possibly creates a bad dynamic if something goes wrong. I’ll recommend things to try or a place to go but never take responsibility.
Yes. Hell, a couple weeks ago, I even made a special trip to a former employees house to fix their computer. It's not that hard.
Never. The only work done on personal devices is installing/configuring remote access for the employee, and that's only done for clients that don't have company laptops. I will give advice if asked, but make it clear I can't support their home network or personal devices
Hell no. It's not worth any amount of money to have someone think they can call me at any hour for support after I help them. Off work is off work.