I wish I never told anyone I worked or studied tech. Especially older family and friends, because their requests for help are relentless.
A lot of friends are chill with it, and I don’t mind doing a little bit of help, but sometimes people are who are OFFENDED when you don’t want to help. In the same way a contractor friend won’t remodel your home for free, I am not going to fix every single issue you have with your computer for free. I’m happy to give advice, but i’m not going to work for hours without pay to fix everything.
There’s a lot of cringey responses in this thread. Just be a nice person and talk to your family and friends in an open and honest way.
Firstly, this happens in any profession. I’m a tax consultant. People always want to talk to me about tax.
Thing is, 100% of the time people will understand if you say “I don’t really know very much about that particular thing I’m sorry.”
When someone says “my wifi isn’t working” they’re not necessarily saying “please will you come over and fix my wifi”, often they’re really saying “what should I do to solve this problem” and the answer is usually “turn it off and on again, update adobe reader, if it’s still not working take it to whatever shop.”
If someone directly asks you “please will you stop what you’re doing and come fix my x”, which never actually happens, then you just deal with it as appropriate. “Sorry nan I have a lot going on right now, you’ll have to take it to the shop”.
And if someone says “hey, can you come fix my computer,” and when you show up she just lays in bed and looks at you longingly from there, that means you really got to fix the computer and then leave so she can get some sleep.
Yeah, look she couldn’t even dress up to greet you. She must be really really tired
This actually happens quite frequently. It’s rare to leave a family party without a follow up appointment to look at a persons tech.
“Yeah but you know tech so you must just be sand bagging”
My point is, you just have to navigate these interactions as you would any social encounter.
If someone asks me to stop whatever I’m doing and go and do whatever thing for them I would politely decline and explain why I’m unavailable.
It’s kind of preposterous to suggest that someone who is asking you for free help would tell you you’re “sand bagging” when you told them you’re unable to. I don’t really have friends or family like that. If I did it would be the same approach though - just having an open and honest conversation about why I can’t help.