sippo Posted November 26, 2009 Posted November 26, 2009 ....should I charge to fit a teachers laptop keyboard or should I not bother? What would you do? I know it wouldn't take me long but he said he would take it to a shop to be done. How much would they charge?
Potato-Peeler Posted November 26, 2009 Posted November 26, 2009 The price of the keyboard and £60 an hour, divided by how long it actually took you? So half an hour 30 quid?
pagelad Posted November 26, 2009 Posted November 26, 2009 Id just fit it for free and make a cheeky remark when doing it. I do a few teachers machines \ laptops, never hurts to make yourself liked by the staff. They usually furnish me with a bottle of wine or something similar when i see them again which is always nice.
steveg Posted November 26, 2009 Posted November 26, 2009 I normally do smaller jobs like that for beer or chocolate! Steve
broc Posted November 26, 2009 Posted November 26, 2009 I generally do things for 'free' too, and if pressed suggest maybe a bottle of wine as a thank you. I once got half a case of wine from someone for doing some work for them.... very nice it was too! My worry is once you start taking payment you have all sorts of obligations.... what happens if you break something, or some later problem occurs.... I offer a no fee, do my best but no guarantee level of service.....
DrPerceptron Posted November 26, 2009 Posted November 26, 2009 At £60 an hour... I would get a whopping £1 for changing a laptop keyboard here... and that's if I charge for at least 1 minute.
sippo Posted November 26, 2009 Author Posted November 26, 2009 the thing is this member of staff, I like, but he'll be expecting it to be done for free (although he'll pay for the replacement keyboard). If he was going to take it to a shop then he's willing to pay. I'll probably do it for some beer.
Dom_ Posted November 26, 2009 Posted November 26, 2009 I generally do stuff like this for free, usually people give a thank you card with cash in, or beer/wine, but i'm not bothered if they don't tbh
jumpinjamez Posted November 26, 2009 Posted November 26, 2009 I am a no fee no guarantee guy? I do stuggle with the "can you put MS office on laptop please i only have a 60 day trial" i tell them as a teacher they can get it for £60 approx and they look at me like "i have to pay cant you put it on for free?" so i point them to Open office
sidewinder Posted November 26, 2009 Posted November 26, 2009 unless it was a nightmare laptop that required hours of dissassembly to get to the keyboard id do it for nothing
RabbieBurns Posted November 26, 2009 Posted November 26, 2009 something like replacing a keyboard id do for free. Id just get them to bring the laptop and the kb to my office, and do it on school time, as theoretically the laptop is used for the staff to do school work on no doubt. That way, im still theoretically getitng paid for doing it.
apoth0r Posted November 26, 2009 Posted November 26, 2009 Always charge something, even if its a bar of chocolate. You don't want to be the guy who does everything for free, you may bite off more than you can chew. Don't they gossip!
dalsoth Posted November 26, 2009 Posted November 26, 2009 I would not do it at all. Like someone or not, you start doing "personal" work for them, you go from friend to IT fixer. Even my family get a snarl if they bother we with computer stuff too much as you need to balance your work life with other things too. I used to go home from work, do a couple of machine rebuilds for friends and family then it got to me bringing home staff home computers and laptops with no guarantee they would pay anything. It would be computers all day at work and then all night at home. Yes i do love computers and spend my own time messing with them at home but that is usually little projects or certification studies and not simple reinstalling XP for someone for the 20th time. Some do not even bother to say thanks, just an email to drop it off in their office or something. Yeah you may get a box of chocolates from someone but sometimes you may have spent 3-4 hours installing the OS, apps, restoring work from backup and then updating it all. Box of chocs be damned!! £30-40 an hour at least. There are problems though with asking for cash as brought up in the past as you have to declare this to your employer in many cases. When you tell someone you will end up spending 3 hours or so on their laptop and want £90 quid they treat you like you just tried to kidnap their child. Laptop keyboard would take me less than a minute to do but i still would say no. Got to help the economy and keep those PC World - IT Guys in business as they really do need the practice.
Hightower Posted November 26, 2009 Posted November 26, 2009 I would not do it at all. Like someone or not, you start doing "personal" work for them, you go from friend to IT fixer. Even my family get a snarl if they bother we with computer stuff too much as you need to balance your work life with other things too. I wouldn't say that - especially with family and friends. I'm willing to help them with my trade, they are willing to help me with their trade. I have a mate who's a gas engineer - he's offered to service my boiler for nothing in the new year as I'm buying my first house and he knows how tight money can be. I also have a mate who's a joiner and has offered to replace the interior doors in said house and I only have to pay for the doors. Finally, I have another mate who has a low-loader truck and has offered it to me free (his company will even pay the diesel) on moving day to help me get shifted. What goes around comes around I say, and if any of them ever has a problem with a computer I'll be there in a crack!
dalsoth Posted November 26, 2009 Posted November 26, 2009 If i ever want my homework done i will fix the teachers computers for sure! What you describe is slightly different from what i was getting at and i do not see a problem with helping someone out who you feel is the type of person you could definitely use a favour from at a later stage. I have never met more than one or two teachers who would ever do me a favour. Sorry to the teachers out there but most I have dealt with have no common sense. I would not trust any of them near anything i own as they have an auto destruct sequence built into their DNA to wreck stuff. Now i have done the site agents favours and such because they are top guys and know when to return the favour. Outside of work, i do things for friends and family but the usual suspects know not to bother me too much as i moan a bit when a relative has screwed up windows or linux for the 10th time in as many weeks and needs it sorted ASAP.
TwoZeroAlpha Posted November 26, 2009 Posted November 26, 2009 If the job is less than half and hour I usually don't bother about charging. Just Wine/Beer is a nice thanks you. If I have to take something home and work on it or get called out then I'm most likely going to want paying. You've got to remember that unstuffing a system might seem like a doddle to you, but the user concerned wouldn't know where to start. Family gets free, useful friends get free/massive discount and everyone else gets the charges they deserve. I's mercenary I know, but if I'm giving up my free time I damn well deserve to be compensated appropriately. @the OP - £10 if it's easy, £15 for a PITA job.
RingOfFlame Posted November 26, 2009 Posted November 26, 2009 I have never met more than one or two teachers who would ever do me a favour. Sorry to the teachers out there but most I have dealt with have no common sense. Well with an attitude like that it is not surprising that your fellow staff members would want to help you out really. I am with the do it for free crowd. Most laptop keyboards can be replaced in a matter of minutes. Kindness does not cost a thing and in the current climate everyone could use a little of that. 1
penfold Posted November 26, 2009 Posted November 26, 2009 Just think of all the plummers/sparkys etc who can do a job in 5 mins simply because they know how to do it. They charge for a service and we should do the same. I try to avoid helping people out in work now as it was getting a bit much in the past. You can easily end up with hours of work to do and if you get a bottle of wine/chocs etc it works out to less than minimum wage and quite frankly I can spend my time better. If the people in work are friends then sure I'll take a look at a problem, but now I make sure people know if they expect me to fix something I charge. But if it was a quick & easy job I probably wouldn't charge but everything else will cost.
sippo Posted November 26, 2009 Author Posted November 26, 2009 If said teacher takes it to a well branded PC superstore, they would charge him lets say for example, £100. If I do it for £50 then we're both winners surely?
dalsoth Posted November 26, 2009 Posted November 26, 2009 Well with an attitude like that it is not surprising that your fellow staff members would want to help you out really. I am with the do it for free crowd. Most laptop keyboards can be replaced in a matter of minutes. Kindness does not cost a thing and in the current climate everyone could use a little of that. Suitable name for a bit of flaming but i guess my remark invited it a little . I mean to say really that i can not recall a member of the teaching staff who would have some sort of skill or ability that i could call upon for a favour. I am pretty much someone who can turn my hand to anything and most of the teachers i have met are the opposite. It is a struggle to move a computer tower from one side of the desk to the other without need for tech support. Bearing that in mind i would not be asking them to come round to take a look at my boiler. Certainly this is not the case with all schools and all teachers. Kindness such as fixing staff home equipment whilst you are at work would certainly be a problem, especially if word got around and others ask for help with other problems. Taking equipment home to fix is definitely a no no for me as per my reasons earlier.
dalsoth Posted November 26, 2009 Posted November 26, 2009 If said teacher takes it to a well branded PC superstore, they would charge him lets say for example, £100. If I do it for £50 then we're both winners surely? A teacher got quick narked off with my techie when he told her he would install her computer from scratch with everything on it for £50. She has never spoken to him since. He told her she could always go to PC world and they would most likely charge more as he was going to replace a faulty hard disk from a spare of his own for free too. She tried to haggle the price down and although he was polite and explained it was not worth his time otherwise she went on the turn. Best not to get involved in my opinion.
SteveBentley Posted November 26, 2009 Posted November 26, 2009 Just think of all the plummers/sparkys etc who can do a job in 5 mins simply because they know how to do it. They charge for a service and we should do the same. I hear that in some areas they have a kind of bartering system, whereby each person in the group can call on the services of another member and "pay" in the currency of "favours", equivalent to an hour's work. So you might spend a couple of hours fixing somebody's PC, you have two favours which you can cash in for a couple of hours' work from the plumber, mechanic, sparky etc in the group.
mb2k01 Posted November 26, 2009 Posted November 26, 2009 (edited) Sadly I have to mostly agree with the posters saying don't do it! You will get a rep for it, and people will come to you constantly expecting a top service at a min (or free) price. It's not on. I'm looking at implementing a "home service" as an extention of our school-based roles. If it is documented in a school policy that staff or students can make limited use of in-house technical capabilities out of hours for a fixed price, then I don't see anything wrong - everyone is a winner - the staff know what to expect to pay, the technical staff know they will get overtime (offset against the cost paid by the staff member), and the school know staff will always have reliable access and service. Edited November 26, 2009 by mb2k01
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