If you work on a consumer e-mail app, sure, by all means get them using that and help them with it. But many (most) of us don't work on products that are targeted at consumer needs, or have any special knowledge about the products our family members use. Let the people who do, do their jobs; everyone will get a better outcome that way.

I still help friends and family with computer problems, but I try to avoid friends-of-friends and such.

By the way, the idea of considering myself and my family as a single unit is bizarre to me, unless you're talking about just the immediate relatives. Each branch of my family has at least two "sub-branches" who don't speak to each other :)

I'm not saying you should be Mother Teresa, or even help people you don't like, but iff you like someone and they need help, just help them out.

They might help you out later with something else they can do better than you.

Unlikely, because they won't see what you've done as help - you just end up associated with the computer, and viewed as part of the problem.

I'm not saying never help anyone with anything ever - just not with technical tasks - don't build someone a website, don't set their computer up, don't uninstall their malware - you will just end up beholden, and nobody will thank you.

By all means, however, mow the lawn, do the shopping, bake a cake - just nothing which requires ongoing support.

So many times this.

It is peculiar how people view computer janitory as "simple" activity, despite not being able to do it themselves. Is that because all you do is press some buttons here and there? It is in fact perceived to be so easy that you get people complaining for your free work.

I've been asked by literally total strangers to "fix their PC" for them; would they ever consider asking a random plumber for a favor like that?

- "Oh so you do something with computers, could you please fix my laptop?"

- "Eh what are you doing for a living?"

- "A mason"

- "Cool then, we long wanted to change tiles in the bathroom"

[awkward silence]

That's happened to me several times. I've also had people do a similar thing in work settings--people who weren't even direct coworkers.

And yeah that conversation was quite out of blue: we were standing in slow grocery queue, think I was wearing my keycard and it came up.

I learned this the hard way with my girlfriend's grandmother. After I fixed a whole bunch of stuff, all complaints became "Omegaham monkeyed with my computer and now it won't work."

My mom is a lot better about this, though... and my grandmother has been programming since the punch-card days. So it's not all bad.

but she gives me money to study while not having a good pension saved for the future, so who am I to complain!

A child response to you refers to my point - which is that if I uninstall bonzi buddy for you, you then decide it's definitely my fault when you install malware next time, and instead of "please can you help?" it's "fix my fucking computer, why did you break it?".

No good deed goes unpunished. Introduce a financial exchange into the mix and it ceases being a good deed and becomes a commercial transaction, and peoples' assumptions and expectations accordingly change.

Work often implies responsibilities and demands. There can be none in a favor.

> it makes sense to do those things for them.

I try to "teach them to fish", not just "give them the fish", though. Unless it's too complex or we're too pressed for time.

That's nice if you have a nice family. A lot of people have really shitty families. I don't see any reason to treat people special just because they are family. I do things for my parents, but I actually like my parents. There is no way in hell I'm doing anything for most of my aunts, uncles, or cousins, because they are bad people.