Rant but you were poorleh - old ladies and computers....NNNNGGH :eek:

TdC

Trem's hunky sex love muffin
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Background: Recently I got my mum an HP all-in-one printer/scanner/copier thingy to replace her burnt out old canon printer that had like 3 squillion miles on the clock. Also, I have a serious bout of man flu, as mu coworker (called Hans) was kindly enough to give me last week as I had to endure a few days course in London with him (and two flights, where the sickly bugger sat next to me sneezing as many bacteria on me as he could)


My lovely mother was kind enough to call me out of a flu-riddled sleep this afternoon. She explained that something was wrong with her new printer, and that she had a "computer expert" in the house with her to look at it. Then the man himself came on the line and asked me how I'd installed the software for her HP, because it wasn't printing any more and he was making out it was my fault. Then my mum came back on again and said she'd tried to change the black cartridge and that hadn't worked even though she'd followed the instructions in the manual. Then she hung up and I went back to bed.

Later on this evening, eg just now, she called me back to ask how I was, and I asked what was wrong with the printer and who the fellow was who she'd had look at it. She explained the man was the local it-shop fellow, and he'd managed to fix the problem (she'd not inserted the black cartridge correctly) but in the mean time had told her that the print-head may have been damaged and she'd probably have to buy a new printer (at least, that is what she understood). Then she said that the man wasn't pleased with the print quality, but hadn't been able to find where to do the align print nozzles feature thingy or whatever HP calls it so he was coming back on Monday. Then she said that the fellow wasn't some dude she knew from like, where she teaches or something, but someone she actually looked up in the yellow pages and called....ie she has to pay this man. And I freaked out (possibly due to her disturbing my slightly fever ridden game of Fallout 3 (....I jest)) and asked her why she hadn't just called me for help, which was free and she said............................................. . . . because you were poorly!

AARGH!

and now I'm riddled with guilt that a)I'm angry at my silly mum for not calling me in first place, b)am slightly flu-ish still, c)my mum is going to get a bill for something where I could have prevented it....NNNGH!

:eek:
 

Kryten

Old Cow.
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:( Don't you just hate it when you're relatives or friends do that.
Just tell her it's a lesson learned, when you have to pay them, they want as much reason as possible to be paid as much as possible. Tell her to call him and cancel it, asking how much it's costing so far.
End of the day if he charges something like £30 - well, Morrisons have a HP all in one thing for £29.99.

"In future, give me a bloody call woman, at least I know what I'm doing!"
 

nath

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In defence of the freelancers, we're not all like that. Although I expect most of us are.
 

TdC

Trem's hunky sex love muffin
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heheh it's a double edged sword. I want my mum to feel she can lean on me whenever she wants, but I tend to ignore my mates who ask me computer stuffs. thank god I'm in Solaris (a unix variant), so I can legitimately claim to know nothing of windows stuffs heh :)

still, I suppose I am most peeved that she didn't want to bother me because she thought I'd be (too) ill (even though it's only a shitty cold ffs).

and as to the guy, well, I got the impression he was bumbling slightly...especially when she told me he'd told her she'd need a new printer - which I do not believe for a second. that aside, I admit that I de-installed lots of the HP software, because I just left the bare minimum on there for the printer to work, as I do not believe the HP solution of installing 630MB of software including some strange product manager thingy that doesn't adhere to windows UI conventions is the correct way to go just so my mum can print off her word documents.

oh well, we'll see. I'd best go call her in case she thinks I really am mad haha
 

TdC

Trem's hunky sex love muffin
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In defence of the freelancers, we're not all like that. Although I expect most of us are.

not all freelancers are shit Nath, I know this for a fact. I just think that this guy may need to realize that what he mentions and what an old lady hears can be completely different.
 

nath

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I agree, the HP software is absurd. There should be a 1mb file for basic printer connectivity, that's all it needs. The fact that installing a new HP printer from a CD can take over 10 minutes from the point you put in the CD goes to show that it's stuffed to the brim with pointless shite.
 

Kryten

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Aye, installed one not long ago, looking at over 300mb for a bloody printer driver. Wasn't even a multifunction!
Long live the days when the driver was on a 1.4mb floppy and still had the bells and whistles :/
 

Trem

Not as old as he claims to be!
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Seriosuly don't get me started on mothers.

You are lucky Teedles, isn't euthanasia allowed in Clogville? (I of course don't mean for your mum but if it was an option for me yesterday I would of given my mum a different sort of day.)
 

TdC

Trem's hunky sex love muffin
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lols Trem, well..."allowed" is a large word though. my mum's a star though, even when she told me I was shit at finding sane women to take home. I'm sorry yours was such a pain at your wedding mate :(
 

Trem

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even when she told me I was shit at finding sane women to take home.

Lol thats just really funny, sounds like something my nan would say, she pulls no punches either.
 

Bahumat

FH is my second home
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Punch your mum in the face, take £35 out her purse and say "next time you're stupid enough to give money away, give me a call instead".
 

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