Scammy tech guy

The tech guy was interesting. Walking into my bedroom, he throws his big black disgusting bag onto the center of my pink, pretty bed. This is NYC so everyone's bags are as disgusting as the pavement outside. Ewwww.

Then he complains about his headache, looks at my desktop and instead of asking questions or telling me what he's doing, he opens several files on the C drive and then tells me how "weird" they are and he stares at them for a long time. I get the same vibe I get when the cabbies tell me how "the whole city is crowded" so it'll take an extra few minutes as they drive around the block running up the meter.

I ask, "so...can you restore my files."

He looks surprised. "Oh no. I can't do that. That's fancy stuff, that file restoration. You'd have to pay a lot for that."

"Well, can you restore my software?"

"Ah, no way," he says as he continues to play around with the C drive.

"So can you tell me what you are trying to accomplish with whatever it is that you are doing?" I said something to that effect.

"I'm going to download a free trial of an antivirus thing I like," he says.

I'm thinking, duh, I can do that myself for free, but he insists. He then wants to look for the virus in this free software anti-virus thing.

"You'd better sit down," he says. "This could take a while."

"Will this take more than an hour?" I ask. "Because I don't want you to work longer than that."

"Oh no way!" he says. "This could take, 2, 3 hours!"

I look at him in disbelief. He hasn't even gone into DOS or done any of those impressive things I've seen the techies do at past jobs. He's just starred blankly at the desktop and looked at text files. And now, he's downloaded a virus checker I cold easily have gotten myself. And now he's going to go through the user-friendly menus to check for a virus? Give me a break.

"I can handle the virus checker myself," I say.

"Oh but I have other tools. Such as a special disk."

Oooh! Now, as impressed as I am with this special disk and all, I've had it.

"Thanks for taking a look," I say. "I appreciate your time here. How much do I owe you?"

"70 dollars," he says.

"70 dollars? You have been here for exactly 30 minutes, not a full hour."

"Well, like I said it's $70 for a 'full hour'," he says.

"Okay," I say. "I mean, there's nothing I can do about it if that's what you're charging, but it doesn't seem like a very good way to run a business if you ask me."

He's now pissed.

"Forget it! Forget it. Just don't charge me anything at all." He's throwing a hissy fit now and about to just storm out.

"No, no," I said, "I said I would pay for the time you 'worked' so I will give you the amount for half an hour."

I pay him. He leaves. I'm back where I started.

Luckily my Mom mailed me my Microsoft Office disk so I can reinstall it. I'm going to not bother with the file restoration, as it was mostly personal stuff anyway, and put the money towards a new lap top. So all in all, it's worked out fine.

If only the mysteriously attractive James Bond type NYC guys were as attracted to me as computer problems are, j/k. :)