Adventures Tyzh-programmer. New Year's Eve Mood Post

The usual situation on the order. Frame from C / F "Four Rooms"

Each of us is familiar with the brand "tyzh-programmer", even if you are a web designer. You sit at the computer - the programmer! The collective image of a superhero in the field of repairing computing and not very technical, romance. But in reality, a more or less intelligent enikeyshchik handles this role with a can of disks, a screwdriver and sharpness, who your humble servant was from 2008 to 2011. And so, while Vladivostok is getting ready for bed, to start cleaning mandarins and planing oliveshik before anyone else, and the western part of Russia only anticipates tomorrow's preparations for the New Year, I suggest you, the reader, get comfortable and get acquainted with those cases from my practice that I can not forget. It was a great school, which allowed us to learn how to find ways out of seemingly dead-end situations with a minimum of tools and a maximum of a nervous customer behind one’s shoulders. The skills of communication acquired in work and the pumped sharpness more than once saved me in my further labor activity already in the role of support on various projects. I visited several hundred orders, met several hundred people, situations and problems. Someone was initially angry, someone was a quiet cat and did not interfere with work, but I will tell you about someone today.

And may I pass by the banhammer UFO! Go!

One of the first bright, memorable orders, which I can remember, is connected with an elderly, but quite an accomplished, teacher of either BSU or “peda”, is not the essence. At the dawn of my “career” of a type programmer, everything was simple. At that time, no one ever heard of Windows 7, while the computer park purchased at the beginning of a relatively well-fed zero was no longer immortal at Win XP. Buying a new iron was then much, as now, can not afford. On one of these orders, an elderly woman opened the door for me in one of the sleeping districts of Minsk. I generally practiced this practice without fear. he could pass for a student of secondary courses (185 cm per 100-105 kilos) by height and build, and youthful bravado mixed with the juvenile thirst for easy money muffled the inner voice of reason.
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And so, the door opened, I was invited inside, offered coffee or tea, I refused on duty and also asked for a glass of water on duty. Why water? I didn’t like coffee at that time (OH GOD, BURN BURDEN) and was cool about tea. Especially outside the window was the July heat. In the corner, under the table stuffy, poorly furnished room huddled old system unit, in appearance - the end of the 90s beginning of zero. The first candidate for resuscitation in this weather. The initial survey showed the patient’s standard symptoms: it works slowly, slows down, thinks for a long time, sometimes freezes. According to the owner, of course. The desktop met me with a ton of garbage, some sort of toy labels and other rubbish in the form of the “Internet” mail.ru. When I asked about important files I was proud to say that the most valuable (documentation, photos, etc.) was “cut” on a CD-R, and other documents were stored on a small flash drive in the table. Everything was more than pleasant for me.

To calm my conscience, I drove out the hard “Victoria” and did not notice any fatal damage, I boldly formatted a crap screw, fed the cutter to a blank with a clean system and the already familiar process of installing the OS began. But then the following dialogue took place:

- And how much will it take? - asked the customer.
- It all depends on the computer. From an hour to two. - I replied.
- We can and not have time, it usually turns off earlier.

And here I was strained, as it turned out, for good reason.

According to the hostess, the PC was kept “in consciousness” for no more than 35 minutes, then turned off. I did not go into reboot, I did not return the blue screen that we all love. Just turned off, quietly, in English. She was not particularly embarrassed by this: the computer was old, and the technology needed a rest. 40 minutes of work, an hour and a half of rest. that's how we live.

On that day, the PC decided not to change its habits and still, routinely and almost on schedule, went out about 40 minutes after launch. It is clear that this is not the case. resolutely breaking under the table, I began to bring this “Englishman” to the light of day. At the same time, I am informed that just now, not more than a month ago, my computer was watched by my nephew, the guy in computers and technology who understands, wants to go to the programmer.

And here I was strained a second time, as it turned out, for good reason.

An autopsy revealed the following:

• The cooler on the radiator is screwed not on blowing (into the radiator), but on blowing, you know, such old radiators on self-tapping screws.
• The plug on the mechanics of the cooler is opened, the shaft is filled with lubricant of unknown origin.
• Worker Pentium 4 (it really was him), smeared with thermal grease.

Tell me, what sinister can be in thermal paste? But nevertheless saw pictures how the craftsmen smeared the CPU with thermal paste? No, in my case he was not missed by the contacts, but was close to that. As you know, the more the better, so the processor was well-oiled, with a soul, no less than half a KPT-8. In order to ensure heat sink fidelity, the faces of the CPU and a part of the board were also missed. Everyone has seen the pictures, but already about the antique torture-executions, when in a brass bull fry the victim alive? That's about the same thing happened with the poor hemp. Every day, passing that circle of hell along Dante where it is very hot, he heroically kept for 30-40 minutes, and then quietly, silently left for an emergency sheathdown.

Glory to the gods, on this order no CPU was hurt: the thermal grease applied over the old one was cleaned, the cooler was twisted and in its place was installed one of the blown body (for lack of alternatives), the system was reinstalled more for the purpose of prevention. Leaving, he recommended to start a gun so that the nephew would not approach the system unit anymore. Happy end. Since then, I have not been in that apartment, but I think that the old Englishman had reached his age without incident.

After that, I always opened the system unit for a start and conducted a cursory inspection for the presence of "surprises". And for good reason.

The following story will be fairly short. Another summer order, it seems even in the same year. The door opens a slightly twitching subject and complains again about the spontaneous power off of the PC. The first thing I did was sin on the CPU, but the temperature readings told me that the processor was as cold as the heart of my ex. And here the PC, as in the previous story, thought he was an Englishman and left us, but not at all, just went out. Again we dive under the table, again we retrieve the patient. The initial inspection did not reveal any damage. Having thrown the block on its side (master of rhyme!), I again “started it”. The car started surprisingly quiet. I sat, meditated, watched the rotation of the CPU cooling cooler and inhaled the smell of napalm in the morning of melted plastic. And then I realized that an old PC can not work so quietly. BP did not show signs of life in the form of vigorous cooling noise, and visible overheating on the mat. the board was not detected.

Opening the power supply:

• Where it could melt the isolation of elements it melted
• The power supply wires of the cooling cooler of the power supply unit are neatly cut and tied with a "loop".

When I said that the subject was jerky, I meant it, without any embellishment. The customer admitted that a couple of months ago the cooler began to knock and as a result he did not carry it out. Carefully opened the BP and put the cooler on the lid. As the customer brought his BP to the frankly flammable state (with whom the power unit was blazing, he knows how dumb it is) with his actions, he was strictly shown the replacement of the deceased “Chinese”. The next day, I arrived with a brand new FSP at 350W, which the customer’s computer was “behind the eyes” and everything was decided peacefully. Happy end.

Ready for the next story? For a respite, I’ll talk about a couple or three of the fastest and easiest orders in my life. Sort of El Clasico.

Situation: PC does not turn on, does not give signs of life, does not even "rustle".

Solution: I come, undress, walk into the room, sit at the computer, press the power button.
Nothing happens.
I look under the table, turn on the power filter, turn on the computer, take a minimum fee for leaving, get dressed and leave. Easy money!

Once I had to come and turn on the monitor.

Or plug the Ethernet cable into the system unit to return the Internet to the house.

One day, the computer did not start up due to the fact that someone had pulled off the power button wires from the pins to the mat. board during the "vacuum cleaner" system. block.

There was a lot of different dirt. Once I had to change the winchester in a laptop of criminal authority, or a thief in law, I don’t know, I didn’t really understand it and there wasn’t any desire. One thing was clear - the door was opened to me by a hefty ambala with domes full back and stuffed with rings on the fingers. As it is not surprising, he turned out to be a very calm and even pleasant person. I asked questions on the merits, calmly responded to the fact that I wanted to take the laptop “to the base”, to a small transit point of ChUPa, where I worked then. We agreed as follows: if a new vintchester is on duty at the base, the replacement and setup will take 3-4 hours, then you can come and pick up the laptop. If not, then only in a day. Winchester was, and the customer arrived on a giant SUV after exactly 3 hours, when I had just finished installing the drivers and doing the “final run”. Separately, having calculated for the screw, this bear-like uncle signed an act of completed work, settled, received a check. At once I will say that accounting was conducted strictly with us and the owner of the office mercilessly "punished" for the left. The client, without saying anything, counted the amount 1.5 times higher than the cost of the work done and put it in front of me, asking for a personal phone number. Having grumbled something in the spirit of “personal telephones are not allowed” (the employer's requirement, leave only working business cards) and “I have already paid for everything”, I received an answer that was ingenious in its simplicity:

- I offended you with this amount? Few?

And then I realized that I had nowhere to go. While I was thinking what would happen if I got angry with my “uncle”, he folded the money four times and put it in my shirt pocket with the words “For speed” and with his eyes demanded a phone number. I had to give, however, they didn’t contact me anymore, which I am glad of.

By the way, with all its frightening appearance and deceptive composure, it was one of the best clients in my practice. And not because I tore off easy money as for 5 orders, but because both were adequate and smart. The person did not understand the hardware and the basic tuning of the system, but it was felt that my words reach him and he not only hears, but also listens.

Once, they tried to lure me into a network marketing scheme, or, more simply, financially. the pyramid. I had to work a couple of times, when anniversaries were celebrated in the next room, and you were already at 8 in the morning, 6 and you will see food only after three hours. Unbearable. Speaking of food. I have never agreed to something more massive than a couple of cookies, although from time to time people tried to feed me with borsch (sic!), And later the refusal of tea or coffee became more prosaic than just a dislike for hot drinks.

I walked around the city on foot, I didn’t have and don’t have any personal transport, so imagine: you got drunk on the order of tea or coffee and got in the way because of your need. Especially cunning in this regard, coffee. I think every worker on the road receives this science sooner or later, and therefore refuses to drink.

Regarding the work itself, it can be said that I managed with the minimum number of tools, since there is not much to do on the spot if the problem is caused by iron failure. The backpack always had a universal Phillips screwdriver with a rather thin cross bits, a pair of tubes of thermal paste, a “book” with axes zoo disks from Win XP to Win 7 (yes, I had a Vista and now I’ll tell you why), software, drivers of all sorts and colors , a scattering of RAM boards of a piece 3-4 DDR1-3, sometimes an adapter from IDE to USB for drives, a set of loops and an IDE-SATA power adapter. I also took the cutter with me, because on the spot, they were often either absent or were in an aching state. And yes, be sure to unpretentious network card. And pliers. If I had my way, I would have taken a couple of computers with me in the analysis of various configurations, but for this I needed a car. Which I did not have. Managed so.

So here. Why I drove behind a useless, in fact, CD with Vista. Once, having arrived to order, I was put before the fact that it was necessary to install the still raw and buggy Vista on a very weak PC. The motivation was simple: the friends of her daughter (12 years old) are on the new Vista computers, she is more beautiful and her (daughter) does not soar, as she works. This is how it is. Women can choose not only cars according to the pretty-ugly principle, but also axes. All my admonitions that for this monster from Microsoft Athlon 1800+ and 2 GB of RAM is not enough, did not succeed. I had to grudgingly put Vista. A curtain.

Also the adapter for the USB drive with IDE was not a whim, but a cruel necessity. In those days, netbooks were very popular and, as you know, they were not packaged with drives. Flash drives of decent volume were expensive and after a couple of customers burned down in curved USB ports, I decided to go strictly to the disks.

Plus, there were situations where the flash drive was not detected due to the lack of drivers for the USB controller, which were on this very flash drive. And spin as you like.

In general, we live in a world where very extravagant people meet. Sometimes absolutely fantastic characters opened the door for me, but one of them should be told separately.

Early Saturday morning, December, I came to order. The door of the apartment in the Khrushchev five-story building was opened to me by a fat man of about 45 in a bathrobe. His right, he is at home. But what awaited me in the room had no analogues either before or after.

Almost the entire space of the only room in the apartment was occupied by a huge, unmade bed with clothes, blankets and pillows piled on it. The floor was covered with an even layer of various magazines, mostly erotic. In the corner there was a large, brand-new TV on the pedestal, and under it was an old VCR. Piles of nameless cassettes were present there, on the floor next to this composition, and brought to mind the very faceless cassettes that were hidden away from children in cabinets and safes. The old computer huddled in the corner, and the walls were decorated with fan symbolism of the local junior hockey club. I sat at the computer and then the mountain of pillows on the bed behind my back began to move, and the head appeared to the light. The head was talking and belonged to a very young lady, about 18-20 years old at most. Later I noticed a small video camera mounted on a tripod in the corner of the room and directed towards the bed. In general, the man was entertaining as best he could and was not embarrassed in the least, which could not be said about me. Here is someone who, and I was not at ease, although still approaching the client's house, nothing foreshadowed trouble and my inner voice was silent. I was even more shocked as a decent person by the fact that he ended up being the coach of the regional junior hockey team . The dude closer to the 50s, tumbling with a girl of age on the verge of legality and taking it on camera, worked with children. The problem, because of which I got there, was in copying the video and launching it. Previewing the video files from the conductor was enough for me to understand that these are definitely not Disney cartoons. I completed the order as quickly as possible and left this place. I will say right away that I am not a hypocrite, but I believe that it is better not to show some aspects of my life to outsiders.

After this, the story of how a drunk peasant taught me to properly hold a knife with a “Finnish grip” in order to stab an opponent for sure and tried to show on me while I set up a Wi-Fi for him, it just fades :).

One of the clients showed me his collection of knives and told me how to sharpen them correctly. Although he was sober and engaged in wood carving. But the first 15 minutes of his “miscarriage” made me a little nervous, then I got used to it. In general, you can get used to almost everything.

There were absolutely mystical breakdowns in my practice and, at first glance, after which I worked out a golden rule: you do not know what to do? Check loops! I seriously, very often this rule has saved me a lot of time and even more nerves.

If the problem with the Internet, check the wires. On one of the orders the Internet disappeared as soon as I went beyond the threshold. The problem was that the “noodles” were not laid through the door frame, but simply on the floor, under the carpet, then under the door and into the hallway to the telephone jack again under the carpet. I came, the door kept open. I was leaving, the door to the room was closed, the telephone cable was pressed down by the door, the connection was lost. This is how it is. It seems to be a banal situation, but it seemed to me that some kind of hell was going on.

Once I had to work as a tinsmith, leveling the box of the system unit. A cupboard fell on him. When moving. Therefore, I can safely say: the familiar InWin enclosures are all, these heavy monsters with stiffeners, withstand the fall of the cabinet on them. Well, how to withstand, the edge of the hull of course bent, and bent not weakly, but the mother and all the other "kit" survived the bombardment of the closet. Often it was necessary to “wipe” for other enikeyschiki who did half the work, and deliberately, in order to return in a month or two. Silence about the dying screw, overheating, problems with cooling mechanics is quite a normal practice for many. Some carried with them cheap Chinese components, these mothers trimmed with mini-ATX, and other slag, selling it on the spot with a markup of 200%, while taking it for nothing as “not working”, but much better than the iron itself. Which was sold under the guise of "a little used" at a price higher than the new. On one of such orders, the craftsman before me was sniffing out the buggy BWC shny SATA cable for $ 15, when it was possible to take 70 cents each by one piece and 50% in bulk.

Never forget about safety. This also applies to inserting hands into working sitemen. Praise the heavens, my fingers are stronger than the blades of Chinese coolers, but a ragged wound from hitting the finger heals for a long time, and the cooler usually cannot be saved after such a meeting. If you really need to shove your hands into a working system unit, then at least do not be distracted, take care of them, hands, they will be useful to you.

I also decided for myself that I would never save on two things: on power supply and cooling. On the PSU - because it is dumb, but on the cooling side, because the processors are now expensive. The rest is not so critical in terms of "survival".

What have I learned for myself over the years of running around the city? There are no bad customers. Just by talking and explaining even to a negatively-minded person, you can often win over him. Many of us lack the patience to chew on common truths that are obvious to us. I came across the smartest people, successful businessmen, craftsmen, teachers and polyglots. I saw a huge fountain in the apartment and repaired a laptop for people who built a business on the precious stones trade. It is always worth remembering that each of us is an expert in his field. People feel disregard for their person, as you do not hide it. And the more sincere you communicate with a potential customer, the more chances that you will get your money for your work without any problems and everyone will be satisfied.

I hope my story was able to lift you, the reader, the mood on the eve of the New Year. Holiday greetings.

Well, now I would love to read your stories about working in extreme, or not, conditions.

And with respect.

PS By the way, the comments recalled the stories almost more than described in the article.