I can really feel with these guys.
kelly
from the New York times
August 20, 1998
Hand on Forehead? It May Be Time for a Computer Doctor
By BONNIE ROTHMAN MORRIS
At 10 P.M. every Sunday, Stephen Negron receives a telephone call
from a person in distress. Roger Garvin was once interrupted by a
caller while he was at home alone with his wife.
Jim Mulcahy got an emergency call during his own St. Patrick's Day
party that kept him away from the beer and his friends for 40
minutes.
These men are not volunteer firemen or suicide help-line workers.
They are computer tutors, or computer doctors, or geeks, or just
plain nerds -- the people whose job it is to help other people
figure out their computers. And when their clients and their
clients' computers are on the brink of a breakdown, these tutors
jump to the rescue.
_________________________________________________________________
UNREQUITED LOVE
Tutors, beloved by clients, are not so generous when describing their
clients. Here are some of their pet peeves:
Clients who don't practice.
Clients who just want it fixed.
Clients who refuse to upgrade their computers.
Clients who keep upgrading when they don't need to.
Clients who tinker when they don't know what they are doing, and
can't remember what they did.
_________________________________________________________________
When they started their businesses, phone calls outside of business
hours were not in the game plan. Experts in machinery that no one
else seemed to understand, their business mission was simple: to
help those whom they fondly refer to as "normal people" or the
"technically challenged" learn how to use their computers.
That mission has changed along with their roles.
Tutors have become nursemaids, confidants, friends.
They are like psychiatrists who make house calls.
"The marketing guys will tell you that the computer does everything
and you have to know nothing to do it," said Garvin, owner of
Results Technologies, a computer consulting business in Brea,
Calif., near Los Angeles.
"That's drivel. That's like tossing the car keys to a 16-year-old
and telling him to go have fun. Cars are simple, but you need to
learn how to use them."
Personal computers are now in 42 percent of American homes,
according to Odyssey, a market research company based in San
Francisco, and the need for people who can teach their owners how
to run them is growing.
Computer tutoring is an unregulated industry. Anyone who knows one
program better than another can call himself or herself a tutor and
charge $50 to $100 an hour for his services.
"It's a Wild West out there," said Negron, who left full-time
computer consulting for a permanent job at ABC Inc. as a programmer
and analyst because, he said, there were too many unqualified
people calling themselves tutors.
"They were pests making a lot of messes." Now he tutors part time.
The people who hire computer tutors are often small-business owners
who may or may not be home-based; neophytes who want to use a
computer for household tasks and hobbies, or people who are making
upgrades -- say, from Windows 3.1 to Windows 98.
Some are switching from a Macintosh to a PC or vice versa. They
range in age from children to senior citizens. Many are new to
computing and want to use their machines to get onto the Internet
and send E-mail. Except for the kids, most are scared.
"I was very frightened of my first computer," said Martha P.
Nochimson, a former soap opera writer who now is an author and
professor at Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. "It was like when
you had your first baby and the slightest little thing happened and
you'd become totally unhinged."
Ms. Nochimson bought her first computer at the urging of a
technologically adept colleague. She called him so often with
questions, he started dodging her calls, and she said she realized
she needed to develop a little self-sufficiency. Then she found
Negron. "The object of what we do is to work ourselves out of a
job," Negron said.
Teaching clients how to run their computers is only part of what
these consultants do. Some advise on computer purchases, even
accompanying clients on shopping trips. They set up the computers,
recommend software, provide the training and offer support, solving
inevitable glitches that flare up to torment their clients.
"I'm the help desk for people who don't work for a corporation,"
said Mulcahy, a tutor in Bronxville, N.Y., who traverses the
metropolitan area in a black '92 Acura Integra emblazoned with the
logo of his company, Computer Tutor @ PCI.
While most tutors prefer to get involved with their clients right
when they buy a computer, many jump in only after hardware mistakes
have already been made.
Bill Sorby, owner of Sorby Contracting in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.,
bought a computer for his business and called Mulcahy to set it up.
Once Mulcahy checked out the goods, he told Sorby that he had
bought the wrong computer for the job, which included running
engineering software. Together, they returned the machine and
bought another. Sorby even saved some money. He still had to learn
how to run the computer, though. Mulcahy took care of that, too.
Most computer tutors say that teaching people how to use a computer
offers them the greatest satisfaction. There are a few caveats:
this is true primarily if the student is willing to spend time
outside of "class" to work on his computing skills. The mix of
student and teacher must also be right. Some trainers cannot adjust
their techie language to basic English.
Photo Credit: Susan Farley for The New York Times
Photo caption:
Jim Mulcahy, a computer consultant with Computer Tutor @ PCI in
Bronxville, N.Y., makes house calls in the New York area for people
with computer woes. He will even call help lines so his clients don't
have to.
_________________________________________________________________
Interestingly, tutors say that lesson one is often helping students
overcome their fear.
"If they're in a mind-set where the computer is going to give them
grief, people freak out," Garvin said. "You have to be a counselor
to find out why and then move on to the training."
Then the silly questions start. A client of Mulcahy's called him in
a panic one evening because his computer wouldn't boot up. He
instructed the client to remove the diskette from his floppy drive
and press any key to continue. The man started screaming that he
couldn't find the "any" key. Mulcahy calmly told him it was next to
the "something" key. The man finally relaxed. Problem solved.
Many times problems are not so easily fixed, of course, especially
when files or programs disappear. Then computer tutors arrive like
white knights to rescue the files.
If they cannot fix the problem, they will know where to go for
help: manufacturers' help lines, the Internet or books.
Mulcahy even calls the help lines for clients himself, sparing them
the torture of listening to recorded music for minutes on end and
the confusion of speaking to a technician whom they might not
understand.
At times, there are problems even tutors cannot solve -- when the
computer actually breaks, for example, as Ms. Nochimson's did when
she was facing a deadline. Negron lent her a laptop computer to
help her out of her jam. "I didn't ask him for it," she said. "It
was very princely. He's like a merry little conductor on the
choo-choo of computers."
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
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