These anecdotes from the front lines of 90s tech support are nothing short of astonishing. It's a vivid reminder of how the tech industry, often seen as mundane or straightforward, has its share of wild, almost unbelievable stories. From tech mishaps turning into hazardous situations to an inadvertent descent into the world of digital piracy, it's a stark contrast to the current, more sanitized world of tech support and IT.
Fixing Macs door to door
121–130 of 213 posts
Re: Fixing Macs door to door
#122[dead]
Re: Fixing Macs door to door
#123[dead]
Re: Fixing Macs door to door
#124I did this in the mid 90s. It was really fun to see inside a lot of rich people's houses, the sort that have libraries so big they need those ladders with wheels on to scoot around. I was hit on by several bored housewives, including one that answered the door in her open robe. One American woman had brought her inkjet from the USA and I hooked it up to a decent convertor, but it wasn't one that converted the frequen…
>I was hit on by several bored housewives, including one that answered the door in her open robe.
When you applied for the job did they list this under the benefits?
Re: Fixing Macs door to door
#125This was superb. Thanks to the author for sharing.
Re: Fixing Macs door to door
#126The tales from the 90s of fixing Macs are like pages from a tech thriller novel. Each story is a mix of high-end luxury, unexpected social encounters, and a descent into the murky waters of digital piracy, all wrapped up in the day-to-day life of a computer technician. It’s a fascinating glimpse into a past where the lines between technology, adventure, and moral ambiguity were constantly blurred.
Re: Fixing Macs door to door
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
> When I got out and realized it was dark, I started to accept something bad was likely about to happen to me. This was the only part that really got me. I have visited a few major US cities but never really lived there, but now I’m wondering how common it is for American city dwellers to be afraid of the dark.
Entirely place dependent, these days (30-50 years ago, crime was seriously pretty bad). I live in a huge American city, and I have virtually no fear of personal or property crime when I’m out at night. But in many cases, if I shifted my path a half mile in a different direction, it’d be a different story. Like anywhere, I would suppose, being aware of your surroundings, keeping your wits and not making yourself into…
I’m not sure this is true anywhere. I live in a moderately sized UK city, and have done most of my life. There’s nowhere in the city that I would intentionally avoid at night due to the risk of bad things happening to me, many decades ago a friend and I were mugged by a large group of teenagers, and that was in what’s widely considered a good part of the city. At the same time I’ve walked through what are considered rough areas late at night on the regular and never had anything more threatening happen than drunks stumbling about the place.
The only thing I can think of here is that I’m a fairly heavyset 6’1” male, who wears chunky jackets most of the time. Maybe trouble sees me coming and decides it’s not worth the hassle (which is for the record hilarious to me, I’ve been in two fights in my life, and got my ass kicked both times).
Re: Fixing Macs door to door
#128I did this in the mid 90s. It was really fun to see inside a lot of rich people's houses, the sort that have libraries so big they need those ladders with wheels on to scoot around. I was hit on by several bored housewives, including one that answered the door in her open robe. One American woman had brought her inkjet from the USA and I hooked it up to a decent convertor, but it wasn't one that converted the frequen…
I did window cleaning in the 2000s and went inside many rich folks homes. It was my favorite part of the job.
But I had a much different experience. They were kind, more humanizing than middle class housewives, and very proud of their homes which were often fully custom to their spec. Most had built a successful business. Perhaps my curiosity went a long way to flatter them, or they saw themselves in me - young and hustling.
Re: Fixing Macs door to door
#129I did this in the mid 90s. It was really fun to see inside a lot of rich people's houses, the sort that have libraries so big they need those ladders with wheels on to scoot around. I was hit on by several bored housewives, including one that answered the door in her open robe. One American woman had brought her inkjet from the USA and I hooked it up to a decent convertor, but it wasn't one that converted the frequen…
Just a PSA (not trying to harp on parent commenter, just taking their comment as an opportunity to soapbox) but never, ever, every go into a room or building that is getting smokey from something burning. It's how you N+1 the casualty/death count in a fire. Unlike the heroes in films and movies, you don't have Plot Armor. It is incredibly common that people think they can just go back in holding their breath or stay…
> It is incredibly common that people think they can just go back in holding their breath or stay low or cover their mouth with their clothing like in hollywood
Thanks, I had the slight impression that this was true and now feel incredibly stupid.
Re: Fixing Macs door to door
#130From the entire article, this paragraph stood out the most to me > The golden rule that every single one of these assistants warned me about was not to bother the husband when he gets home. Typically these CEO-types would come in, say a few words to their kids and then retreat to their own area of the house. These were often TV rooms or home theaters, elaborate set pieces with $100,000+ of AV equipment in there that…
I spent a year working for an A/V installation company - whole house integrated sound systems, media servers, security, etc - and their clientele was solely multi-millionaires of various nationalities.
My job was primarily as a programmer for the control systems these installations used so I spent the majority of my working day in clients homes. They were without exception the most sterile, vapid, soulless environments I had ever been in. They had everything in them but nothing felt homely. Another thing was the lack of responsibility for cost. You know the line from Arrested Development “it’s one banana, Michael, how much could it cost, $10?” Well, this is their real lives.
I was asked to visit a client to arrange a laptop for them to use for day trading. I turn up, start going through options for MacBooks, their pros/cons, costs of models vs features and the guy turns to me, exasperated, and goes “I don’t care about the cost, just give me what I need”. Ok, I say I’ll let my manager know what I picked. I find out a couple weeks later, he’s actually rented a Bloomberg terminal for thousands a week. He then gets me back in to set the thing up. I’m sat at this machine, on the phone to Bloomberg being asked by them for the clients usernames and password, me leaning over to them to ask for the details, being told, relaying that back to Bloomberg, about three times. Until, exasperated, he takes me notebook and writes down every username and every password for every account and service he used. Bloomberg, banking, email, everything. It was worth poor old me having that to not bother him any more than necessary.
Plenty of experiences from that too brief 12 months but was a massive eye opener to a side of society that I’d never have got the chance to see.
It’s a different world, but not entirely sure it’s one I’d want to live in.