Stop Being A Pushover

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I’m the world’s worst when it comes to saying “no”.  I guess I’ve always been that way because I like to help others.  It’s just a part of me to always be there for my friends and family when they need me in every way I can.  Because of that I guess I get myself roped into situations sometimes that I really don’t want to deal with.

I know when it comes to my home business I’ve financially hurt myself in a lot of situations.  I’m not shelling out cash to fix something, but there have been many times when I’ve had friends say “I know this is your job, but will you fix my computer for me for free?”  I always say “yeah, you know I will.”  That’s no big deal because it’s normally a small task that I can accomplish in a few minutes, but this morning I had a run in with a friend who really pushed me to the point where I finally said no to him.

He wanted me to build him and his two roommates all new computers.  We started going over costs of parts, options they have, etc, and by the time we were done pricing the thing it’s going to cost close to $1500 just for parts.  I don’t blame him, he wants something kick ass, and I was willing to give it to him.

So, after figuring all this up I tell him I’m not going to go over the top with charging you, so I’ll give you the friend discount.  I’ll build the whole system and only charge you $50 extra instead of charging you hourly like I do everyone else.  Our conversation went like this.

Me-  I’ll charge you $50 for the build and setup instead of hourly like I do my customers.

Him-  You’re going to charge me?  

Me- Yeah, I can’t do the whole job for free.  Do you know what goes into building a system like this?  If you were a normal customer I’d charge you hourly plus extra for adding the liquid cooling.  Building this isn’t going to be simple.  We could have all kinds of problems I’ll have to deal with.

Him- Nevermind then.  I’ll just order the alienware I was looking at.

Me- But the alienware costs twice as much, and won’t have half the features you want.

Him- Yeah but you want to charge me.

Me- Dude, did you call me because you knew I could build you a kick ass system or because you thought I’d build you a kick ass system for free?

Him- If you want my business do it for free.

Me- Building it for free, I don’t get any business from you.  Dude, I’m not a computer charity here.  Order the alienware.

Him- *click*

He hung up on me, and I know for a fact he won’t be calling me back anytime soon.  Seriously, why do people feel the need to take advantage of others like that?  I’m not going out of my way to spend countless hours or even days building something for him just so he can get out of paying someone to do it.  He’d already be saving big time just for having me order and build the system instead of buying an overpriced Alienware just for the name, but no he can’t afford to spend $50 so I get something out of it.

Fuck him then.  If I built or repaired everything for free I wouldn’t have a business now would I?  I feel like going into the store where he works and telling him he needs to give me a t-shirt for free because he’s my friend, and that’s what he’s supposed to do.  I can use his 10% discount?  Not good enough man!  Didn’t you just get pissed at me because I wouldn’t give you free service with my job?

Tags: computer repair, customized computer build, home business, the friend discount