Oh soapbox, where have you been?
Got a call from Mum this morning saying she needed me to work on a laptop, I said cool, she made it very clear to me that it was urgent and that this guy needed it back like, the next day if possible.
I've worked on this guy's laptop before, easy virus removal stuff, the whatnot, the dude is computer illiterate. Sent it back the first time with everything working in order the way it was supposed to be, didn't hear from him so I guessed he didn't have any issues.
This time around was basically the same spheal, virus things and removing some programs that got installed without him knowing, still easy stuff.
I start to work and maybe 15 minutes in Mum's asking how things are going with it. First off, I don't like hovering from non-professionals. Let me do my thing, if there are complications or I need something from the client to continue working or whatever, or you know, It's done I'll tell you. She stopped by again just to let me know they were going out for pizza, and if I wanted anything, totally fine that time around >_>;
I asked her if I was being paid, she didn't answer me. I texted her the question, she told me that she told her friend that I guarantee all my work and that I probably wouldn't be getting any money from it.
WAT.
I sent that laptop back to him in perfect working order, and now I'm expected to clean up a totally different technological mess? No, that isn't how it works, I don't fix things, get paid once, and then you have me on retainer every time you fuck something new up. If I sent it back to you and it was working and you broke it again, I want payment. If I sent it back not working, then, yeah I should make sure it's fixed. That isn't the case.
Especially since this was super important urgent, had you taken your laptop to a business it would be sitting, in a queue until someone got to it, you'd be paying extra for the expedited service.
EDIT! 10:41PM - So I'm not getting paid, had a verbal fistfight with Mum about it, apparently it's my fault he got more viruses because I didn't show him how to use the anti-virus I gave him. It's stupid. Mum basically told me that she'd take whatever she thought was appropriate payment for my services and credit it toward the zune I'm looking to buy.
Then we had an argument over how I'm helping pay for the zune and the reason I was so caught up in getting paid was so that I could help pay for the zune and have it here faster. She basically threw it all in my face saying it didn't matter how much I helped to pay because she still didn't have the money to make up the difference.
So in regard to the payment over the tech support I'm not really getting paid at all.
I'm livid over the fact that if I didn't have to replace my charger I would have more than enough money to give to her to pay for it, and now it doesn't matter how hard I worked for it or how deserving I am I won't be able to have it because of a money issue. Not a matter of worth, but money, it's stupid and I'm more than upset about it.
It's stupid catches like what happened tonight that make me not want to try, because like with the zune, I should have had it, but couldn't because things were out of my control. Why try if it's out of reach? No reason to put effort into it...