The “Does Not Compute” Jokes Write Themselves

In November, I get a call from my close friend. His father-in-law wants to treat himself to a new computer for Christmas, but since none of them are very tech-savvy, [Friend] suggested I get involved. He’s also on a rather tight budget.

After giving me some details, and emphasizing that I will be compensated for this, [Friend] gets me into direct contact with [Father-In-Law].

I talk [Father-In-Law] through the build I have in mind for him, which should be more than adequate for the games he wants to play, and I make sure to explain that I can easily just grab his previous hard drive and CD burner and put them in the new computer at no extra charge. I also find out that he already bought a GPU earlier this year so that knocks a significant chunk off the cost for the whole operation.

I give him my estimate — we’re talking about 750€ here — and he agrees.

Then, I suggest that I can knock another hundred or so off that without sacrificing processing power if he’s okay with buying used parts since I was looking to upgrade my own computer anyway, and he agrees again.

I’m excited. This is just the cash injection I need to finally buy the parts I want, and my old parts go into good hands right away. I’m so excited that I almost order the new parts already just to have them a bit earlier.

Boy, am I glad I didn’t.

About a week before [Friend] and I agree to go out and get [Father-In-Law]’s PC set up, I get a text message saying that [Father-In-Law] has reconsidered and will be buying a prebuilt computer from a local electronics store. He thinks he’s getting a better deal this way.

After the date comes around, I get [Friend] to send me the model number of the PC [Father-In-Law] ended up buying, and after crunching some numbers, it turns out that I could have built this same exact PC using new parts for just under 600€, and keep in mind that this one does include a new GPU and that the price includes my fee.

[Father-In-Law] paid 1100€ for it.

Also, [Father-In-Law] now has no one to transfer his old hard drive — or the data off of it — into the new PC.

And to top it all off, the PC didn’t come with any optical drives, so he went and bought an external one… for another 100€.

So, bottom line, he paid twice as much for a lesser computer, and I’m still saving for my upgrade.