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This one is too strange not to be reposted. Get some snacks; it's long.
I met this girl my sophomore year in college, we seemed to hit it off pretty well. She tweaked me off at times, but it was explained away as untreated ADHD (since thie following I have surmised she has other issues as well).
The next year, she caused a few hundred $ worth of damage to my laptop (my only computer at the time which I used in class to take notes, so it needed to function). What she did was whip a beanbag toy at me while I was on the computer (overhand throw from less than 2 feet away). It hit the keyboard (that was fubarred) right over the processor (that was also knocked silly along with the hard drive), bounced up and would have shattered the screen had I not caught it. Things didn't start going south until later that day when I needed to finish a paper.
(I don't care if you think you're being "cute", you never ever throw something at a computer. And moreso not at me when I'm working
Say something if you want to get my attention)
I approached her with what happened, and she agreed to pay 1/2 of the parts cost (new HDD, keyboard and cooling fan) and I would be nice and waive my labor charge (highly generous on my part given the hours I put into getting the thing working again).
Never saw a dime of that money; I was pissed but chalked it up to her never having to pay for anything herself (and hence being unaware of the necessity to pay for things herself) and resolved to ramp up selling on ebay to recoup most of the loss.
A year later, she comes to me in the library (I was IT workstudy at this point) neeping about a Zip drive she purchased for photo storage (wtf, get space on Photobucket) "It's not workiiiiiing!" Of course, she has only the manual. I tell her to bring me all the hardware and I would see what I could do (thinking she meant it wasn't working on her Mac, I planned to do a local install on one of the same models in the lab and write down the correct steps for her to duplicate on her own time).
None of the school computers detect Zip drives automatically; the manufacturer drivers had to be installed on each computer the device was to be used on.
Wrong thing to say. She wants me to do an unauthorized network install (even if I did have the capacity to do this, it would be denied as she's the only one who uses one of those drives).
Eventually we get around to "where is the USB cable the manufacturer gave you in the box". She didn't think it was important and threw it out (along with, apparently, the driver disc as well) I tell her there's nothing I can do and she'll have to contact Iomega for new accessories, she storms out in a huff (probably furious about the fact she would have to pay for her stupidity).
A few weeks after that, I do some emergency network repairs for her. As is the usual, any work done outside of my workstudy hours I charge for (no complaints from any of the other people I did support for). Before I touch anything, I make sure she understands that once I lay hands on the modem, my diagnostic fee goes into effect ($20; damn cheap for onsite support). She says OK, I start working, Would have been a simple fix except she tried to fix it herself from the computer and made things worse. So, it took two hours total but I said I would only charge her for 1.5 hours ($30).
I get woken up at 4 AM the following day "What is the meaning of this 'bill'?" in the snottiest tone you can imagine. Yell, scream, bitch, rant, rave, I get hung up on when I start to say I'm willing to discuss things with her if she's upset about it.
Then I get an email calling me "completely untrustworthy", that I was off the list of people she could trust, etc
That was April of 2006 and I haven't spoken to her since (good riddance).
I met this girl my sophomore year in college, we seemed to hit it off pretty well. She tweaked me off at times, but it was explained away as untreated ADHD (since thie following I have surmised she has other issues as well).
The next year, she caused a few hundred $ worth of damage to my laptop (my only computer at the time which I used in class to take notes, so it needed to function). What she did was whip a beanbag toy at me while I was on the computer (overhand throw from less than 2 feet away). It hit the keyboard (that was fubarred) right over the processor (that was also knocked silly along with the hard drive), bounced up and would have shattered the screen had I not caught it. Things didn't start going south until later that day when I needed to finish a paper.
(I don't care if you think you're being "cute", you never ever throw something at a computer. And moreso not at me when I'm working
Say something if you want to get my attention)I approached her with what happened, and she agreed to pay 1/2 of the parts cost (new HDD, keyboard and cooling fan) and I would be nice and waive my labor charge (highly generous on my part given the hours I put into getting the thing working again).
Never saw a dime of that money; I was pissed but chalked it up to her never having to pay for anything herself (and hence being unaware of the necessity to pay for things herself) and resolved to ramp up selling on ebay to recoup most of the loss.
A year later, she comes to me in the library (I was IT workstudy at this point) neeping about a Zip drive she purchased for photo storage (wtf, get space on Photobucket) "It's not workiiiiiing!" Of course, she has only the manual. I tell her to bring me all the hardware and I would see what I could do (thinking she meant it wasn't working on her Mac, I planned to do a local install on one of the same models in the lab and write down the correct steps for her to duplicate on her own time).
None of the school computers detect Zip drives automatically; the manufacturer drivers had to be installed on each computer the device was to be used on.
Wrong thing to say. She wants me to do an unauthorized network install (even if I did have the capacity to do this, it would be denied as she's the only one who uses one of those drives).
Eventually we get around to "where is the USB cable the manufacturer gave you in the box". She didn't think it was important and threw it out (along with, apparently, the driver disc as well)
I tell her there's nothing I can do and she'll have to contact Iomega for new accessories, she storms out in a huff (probably furious about the fact she would have to pay for her stupidity).A few weeks after that, I do some emergency network repairs for her. As is the usual, any work done outside of my workstudy hours I charge for (no complaints from any of the other people I did support for). Before I touch anything, I make sure she understands that once I lay hands on the modem, my diagnostic fee goes into effect ($20; damn cheap for onsite support). She says OK, I start working, Would have been a simple fix except she tried to fix it herself from the computer and made things worse. So, it took two hours total but I said I would only charge her for 1.5 hours ($30).
I get woken up at 4 AM the following day "What is the meaning of this 'bill'?" in the snottiest tone you can imagine. Yell, scream, bitch, rant, rave, I get hung up on when I start to say I'm willing to discuss things with her if she's upset about it.
Then I get an email calling me "completely untrustworthy", that I was off the list of people she could trust, etc
That was April of 2006 and I haven't spoken to her since (good riddance).
I AM the evil bastard!
This was the big wig manager of the programming department too. I took pleasure in the fact that all my coding was soo far above their heads that when I left. They had to start completely over (which was nearly 8 years of coding in my style). Last I heard is they told all the customers that they weren't going to support them anymore unless they bought a new version (which wasn't done yet probably still isn't). My ex-coworkers had told me that it takes them 4 to 10 times longer to get anything done. What I did in 5 mins, takes them 3 to 6 days.
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