When The Service Is Free But The Complaints Are Premium
I live in an impoverished area, and so to try to help out a little, I run a service on Saturday afternoons at the local library that does basic fixes for computers for free.
I had an old lady come in with a Toshiba laptop.
Lady: “It’s really slow. Can you make it faster?”
I run a hard drive cleaner software, a malware scanner and remover, and a few other programs to check for viruses, manage files, and clear caches. We got the computer’s boot time from ten minutes down to two.
Lady: “That’s still really slow.”
Me: “How old is this laptop?”
Lady: “Ten years.”
Me: “Based on the age, and that it only has 2GB of RAM, this is as fast as I can get it without reinstalling the operating system.”
Lady: “Then, just, I don’t know, do something.”
Me: “Ma’am, your computer is old. It cannot support newer material.”
Lady: “Well, then. Just do something.”
Me: “Your computer cannot be fixed for free. I recommend buying a new laptop.”
Lady: “Okay. How much will this cost?”
Me: “Nothing, ma’am. This is a free service.”
Lady: “Okay. Do you have a website?”
Me: “No, ma’am, I just advertise my services through the library.”
Lady: “Okay, so the library is where I leave the one-star review about how useless you’ve been?”
The one-star review was up on Google and other sites by the next day, likely written on her freshly cleaned-up laptop.
