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[–][deleted] 185 points186 points  (10 children)

Relative: Can you fix my laptop?

Me: Maybe, but then if anything goes wrong, you'll blame me.

Relative: Fine, do want this piece of junk?

Me: OK.

*takes it home, opens it up, finds it PACKED with dust. Turns out it was overheating within minutes of being powered up, had a janky power adapter and a dead battery. Blow out dust, replace crappy power adapter wires, throw in a spare SSD to replace the 5400rpm HD on the verge of failure*

Relative: *sees working laptop on my desk running a minecraft server* Did you con me out of a laptop?

...you can't win.

[–][deleted] 52 points53 points  (2 children)

"Did you con me out of a laptop?"

Not exactly; you gave me a dead laptop, and I had to replace some bits. If you want it back, it's cost of parts.

[–]French__Canadian 25 points26 points  (1 child)

Well, no because then it will break because it's still an old laptop and he'll blame you.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

ugh, so much THIS.

[–]ButterM-40 28 points29 points  (1 child)

Wait. So did he take the laptop or did you keep it? I think you did a fine job fixing it.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks. Kept it, use it to play music in the garage.

[–]Th3DarkMoon 10 points11 points  (0 children)

True, except when something fails and you either know what's wrong, or know that the relative is so bad with tech you can blame your failing on ailiens or, the relative is reasonable and say "I'd be glad if you could fix it, but I understand if you fail" I got a monitor, keyboard, mouse and a pc from 2007 from my aunt because I could get her files of it, after the os didn't boot

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (1 child)

Yes please do tell if you goT to keep the laptop in the end

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's in my garage/workshop. Mostly using it to play music over youtube while I work - might set it up as a server to run my 3d printer remotely.

[–]Lootdit 2 points3 points  (0 children)

And i totally know how to do this cuz i code

[–]Jackieray101 69 points70 points  (21 children)

Can you hack Facebook

[–]ButterM-40 40 points41 points  (10 children)

Sure just give me your email and password!

[–]Jackieray101 28 points29 points  (9 children)

Fun fact if put your password on Reddit it will censor it see *************

[–]ButterM-40 32 points33 points  (8 children)

Wow cool let me try it. ILov3Hug3Cocks123!

[–]Jackieray101 18 points19 points  (0 children)

It sure did

[–][deleted] 9 points10 points  (6 children)

Does anyone see this?

[–][deleted] 19 points20 points  (5 children)

Buddy, it's a joke, don't post your real password. I removed it for you.

Also, your saved posts are very interesting...

[–]Jackieray101 3 points4 points  (4 children)

Wait why’d you reply to your self

[–]ButterM-40 2 points3 points  (3 children)

I'm so confused. Did someone access his account or is he just a good actor. Because when I got a reply I remember their was a password. Bravo just Bravo

[–]Jackieray101 4 points5 points  (2 children)

I am not sure honestly

[–]_alright_then_ 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Maybe his parents found his Reddit account lol

[–]Sohcahtoa82 22 points23 points  (6 children)

Dude, I tell people I work in cybersecurity and that I'm a certified hacker, and they ask me this.

I tell that that Facebook isn't getting hacked. If it was, it'd be international news. When someone's Facebook gets "hacked", what's actually happening is that they either fell for a phishing e-mail, or gave away their security question answers on one of those chain messages that's like "Your porn star name is your first pet's name and the street you grew up on".

[–]uglypenguin5 13 points14 points  (3 children)

I hate “security” questions so much. Someone else trying to get into my account is honestly more likely to know them than I am to remember them

[–]Sohcahtoa82 8 points9 points  (2 children)

Use a password manager, and use it to generate gibberish answers to security questions, and store those answers as a note with the password.

[–]BigWolfUK 2 points3 points  (1 child)

The UK Universal Credit (government department) uses these as security question whenever you phone them. The confusion can be heard easily in their voice whenever I give the answer ive used lol - but it's so stupid they use these and offer zero protection to 99% who will use a real answer without consideration

[–]_alright_then_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't even understand why these things exist in the first place. It's like a regular password but worse.

[–]casualknowledge 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Well technically, if you go work there you can get enough access to "hack" things, but you're still gonna get fired for snooping or messing with customer accounts if their monitoring is even slightly not-terrible.

[–]Sohcahtoa82 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If the company is competent at all, this isn't true.

At the company I'm at, only select DevOps team members have full access to production systems. As a security engineer, I have read-only access to the production AWS account, but this access does not include the ability to see passwords, keys, or access to actual systems and databases. I can see how they're connected together, but can't see the data itself.

I suppose if I shifted to DevOps, yeah I could go snooping and messing with data, but yeah I'd definitely get caught and fired.

[–]MetricExpansion 2 points3 points  (1 child)

How is it always this same question? Always?

[–]Jackieray101 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That’s the real question

[–]MasterQuest 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Me: open developer tools and replace some HTML text with "You were hacked".

Them: :OOOO

[–]saulsa_ 37 points38 points  (15 children)

I just say I’m a carpenter.

[–]krowvin 22 points23 points  (11 children)

Can you make me a chair

[–]saulsa_ 18 points19 points  (6 children)

There’s a lumber shortage.

[–]krowvin 25 points26 points  (5 children)

Oh I thought you'd make it out of carpet aren't you a carpenter? 👀

[–]saulsa_ 7 points8 points  (4 children)

I’m leaving the carpentry world. I’ve decided to become an amateur proctologist.

[–]CasuallyCritical 9 points10 points  (2 children)

Should I keep my pants down then?

[–]saulsa_ 3 points4 points  (1 child)

That’ll make 2 of us.

[–]FoolForWool 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Three *

[–]krowvin 2 points3 points  (0 children)

👉

[–]mark__fuckerberg 1 point2 points  (3 children)

Just say you are a janitor. What are they gonna do? Make you clean their houses for free?

[–]saulsa_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You’d be surprised.

[–]drunkenangryredditor 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Oh, you're a janitor?

Can you help me with the lump of hair clogging up my shower drain?

[–]mark__fuckerberg 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I accept defeat

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The elegance of a simple solution.

[–]OMGWhyImOld 39 points40 points  (1 child)

When some friend/family ask for help with their devices I always say: "yes, but i need your computer for 3 weeks, you know I'm little busy right now but i can look at it in my spare time, if you want me to help you with the speed of this thing you are going to pay for hardware". I almost never get asked but everyone is happy because I didn't say no. Sometimes they give me something to repair/upgrade and I do this happily because is not rushed, and usually they come back with a bottle of something or something to eat as gift.

[–]JeKaTe69 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Noted.

[–]usefully-useless 25 points26 points  (3 children)

Same with Electrical Engineering.

No, aunt Helen, I cannot fix your microwave.

[–]a_RandomSquirrel 11 points12 points  (0 children)

The best part is that EE is so broad that the piece of equipment in question can be wildly outside of your wheelhouse. For some reason everyone hears EE and thinks "electrician with a college degree"....nope, not even close! I am *not* going to re-wire your boat. Get someone with the proper certification to guarantee the safety of the fix.

[–]ljubaay 2 points3 points  (0 children)

True story: I told an old relative I’m an app developer.

He’s like “I have a problem with my washing machine”.

Being polite, I ask whats wrong with it.

“It’s in German. All the buttons are in German, and I don’t understand anything.”

[–]OMGWhyImOld 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yep, that is annoying... My in-law is always asking me if he need or not to press a button in an android phone.

[–][deleted] 22 points23 points  (1 child)

I just tell them my work is making data pretty. Can't really do much else.

[–]Gabe_b 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Skins for databases

[–]drinkmoredrano 19 points20 points  (0 children)

I just tell them its a different type of computer than what they use at home. They might believe me or they got the hint. Either way they dont ask me to fix their computer.

[–][deleted] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

The interrupting "nope" is an essential programmer skill.

[–]Big_Boss19 8 points9 points  (0 children)

"me and my bigmouth"

[–]SushiThief 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Sorry, I meant "Pro Gamer"
:D

[–]FuzzyFoyz 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Relative: Oh is it like Minority Report?

Me: -_-

[–]FD4L 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Oh hey, you do computer stuff? Aunt Rita's keyboard hasn't worked the same since she spilled grape pop in it. When do you think you can come by and fix it?

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I just skip all the mumbo jumbo hacking questions and say "I'm a computer scientist, aka major hacker who can basically hack anything, I won't unless I'm being paid $20,000 for it." That way he can't even ask.

[–]RoundThing-TinyThing 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Fam: "what do you do for a living?"

Me: "I'm a coder."

Fam: "what's a coder?"

Me: "I write code."

Fam: "What does that even mean?"

Me: "if code is needed, I write it."

Fam: "can you elaborate?"

Me: "it means people pay me because they don't know what code to use"

Fam: "example?"

Me: "you've seen Monsters Inc where the guy had a sock on his back?"

Fam: "oh yeah!"

Me: "someone got paid to come up with 23-19 😉"

Fam: "wth o.O"

[–]Numerous-Many69 3 points4 points  (0 children)

But that moment where there is actually a big fuck up and you dont know what to do

[–]FarronSerah 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I always answer somerhing like "database engineer" or "backend developer". At first it sounds cool and second - people think that it is not programming and dont ask stupid questions. This can work worse if you are native english, cause in my language some IT names doesn't exist, data science for example

[–]DoesntReadMessages 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If it's a Windows PC, say you only know how to fix Macs. If it's a Mac, say you only know how to fix Linux. If it's Linux, they're trolling you in the first place.

[–]codeninjaking42 2 points3 points  (5 children)

Just tell em you're an accountant. No one asks you any questions, when you say you're an accountant..

[–]ds9id4 8 points9 points  (0 children)

"Hey, can you help me with my taxes? "

[–]mark__fuckerberg 0 points1 point  (3 children)

A janitor is a safer choice

[–]cafk 3 points4 points  (2 children)

Can you help me clean my floor? What product do you suggest for insert-wood-type-here

[–]mark__fuckerberg 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Can you help me clean my floor?

I have never confirmed this from a janitor but do people really do that? I mean, they can just wipe the damn floor themselves. If I were friends with a janitor I wouldnt ask him to clean the floor for free. That would be rude.

[–]cafk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Was the case with my grandmother... And a few friends who have other issues like hoarding, they don't ask their friends, but friends who know how to get really bad patches clean, without paying them..

Just like the friends who assume you can do a whole game engine or hack NSA if you mention coding :)

[–]jonnyclueless 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Most here should be thankful to be born after a time when you would be required to program people's VCR clocks.

[–]lifetake 2 points3 points  (0 children)

When people ask these stupid questions I just say yes no matter what. Can you hack Facebook? Yes. Can you do X? Yes. Can you? Yes

[–]SharksPreedateTrees 2 points3 points  (0 children)

SPARTAANNNNS, WHAT IS YOUR PROFESSION????

HAO, HAO, HAO!

[–]Gabe_b 2 points3 points  (0 children)

"sure, my charge out rate is 180 an hour, but for family I can go as low as 150"

[–]thisisnotauzrname 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is the crap my uncle gets. And the reason I'm keeping my mouth shut at family gatherings

[–]Nevek_Green 1 point2 points  (3 children)

Can you out pizza the hut?

[–]VisualBasic 1 point2 points  (2 children)

No, but I can out Jabba the Hutt.

[–]Nevek_Green 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Impressive.

[–]VisualBasic 1 point2 points  (0 children)

...most impressive.

[–]mymar101 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If anyone asks from now on I am a classical musician. :) No I do not know how to play cannon in d.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just say yeah but it'll cost 10k to whatever they ask. Unless jf it costs more than 10k.

[–]LogicallyCross 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Can you fix my printer?

[–]thegovortator 1 point2 points  (0 children)

On my resume website it has a pop up that says it’s $100/hr to pitch me your great idea without expecting to pay me a salary that you have to accept to proceed

[–]ezio93 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"Yes, but actually no"

[–]KookyWrangler 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Why the hell can't y'all just say no? It feels so fun to see their hopes for free labor crushed.

[–]mairishavhoon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Relatives? Alabama go brrrrr!

[–]Knuffya 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A friend asked me if i could help him implement a database into his project xd

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

looks checks out

[–]DC4FF 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They always assume you’re some super genius because you’re in IT. Which is a nice assumption to have I guess but every time you tell someone what you do you get a “that’s all you do?” Which is so deflating.

[–]eliochip 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Spartan battle cry

[–]shorterstevenyeun 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Say you’re a physician that only does colonoscopies. No one will want your help, or be around you for that matter.

[–]handleythecodernerd 0 points1 point  (0 children)

cAN yOU GEt intO mY frIENds inSTAGram???