Tips for someone interning at a computer shop.

[nosirrah123]

Hello my fellow nerds! Recently I have been offered a position as an intern at a computer shop. From what I know, they do a little bit of everything, repair, building, and selling. I don't know any exact details of what I'll be doing there, but I will probably be doing a bit of repair and a bit of building. Even though I drool over gpu's on Newegg, keep up with the news, and know just about everything you need to know, I have very little hands on experience. I also know mostly about building from scratch, and not repair, though I do have a good undertstanding of how parts work. Any general advice or rules of thumb that I should know?

[Askew]

Just watch the goings on like a hawk and try to learn as much as possible without being annoying, ask people questions and take as many opportunities to do hands on stuff with supervision as possible.

 

Don't try to do something you're not sure on how to do, just ask someone to help you out.

[Bagmup]

Don't be afraid to ask questions.

[PokémonTrainerFour]

Do some reasearch and don't argue with your superiors.

And pay attention whenever you get experience/watch someone.

[d33g33]

No matter how 'dull' something appears, pay attention and be interested in everything enthusiasm and eager to learn any and all aspects will be looked upon fondly.

 

Little things can make a big difference.

 

If they ask you if you understand and you don't, say no so they can explain it differently again until you do understand. Might sound obvious but so many people say Yes when they don't understand something that has been explained to them, it's totally fine to say you don't understand.

[Unhelpful]

Don't be afraid to ask questions.

Unless the question is something along the lines of "so which one is the ssd?" and they expect you to have at least 2 years of PC repair experience.

[Misanthrope]

I'd focus more on the social aspect, try to be extra nice with distributors and such. All the technical stuff is honestly not too difficult you'll quickly learn all of it but the social stuff that could be very useful if you ever need to find another job or start your own PC computer business.

[Benjio]

Combofix and Malwarebytes are your friends. Also work on your social skills, being able to communicate with customers and make them happy is just as important as fixing their computer. Also don't waste your time troubleshooting stuff, just Google it to see how other people fixed it.

[CoolBeans]

Do everything you are asked to do, no matter how dumb or tedious they are

[aricleather]

Make sure to know what the hell you're working with... My friend went to Best Buy once to pick up a KVM switch and nobody, not even the "Geek Squad" knew what he was talking about.

[d3sl91]

Hello my fellow nerds! Recently I have been offered a position as an intern at a computer shop. From what I know, they do a little bit of everything, repair, building, and selling. I don't know any exact details of what I'll be doing there, but I will probably be doing a bit of repair and a bit of building. Even though I drool over gpu's on Newegg, keep up with the news, and know just about everything you need to know, I have very little hands on experience. I also know mostly about building from scratch, and not repair, though I do have a good undertstanding of how parts work. Any general advice or rules of thumb that I should know?

 

I worked at a computer shop for a couple of years, so everything I say is based on first hand experience. I had a blast while doing that job, even though it didn't pay amazingly well. 

 

1. You cannot fix stupid, but you should try.

90% of what you will work on, is old hardware and budget laptops, owned by people who are computer illiterate. People do very stupid stuff with their computers, and you will potentially get blamed alot for their inability to use a computer properly, to take care of their own stuff. You need to be able to talk in a way anyone can understand, make people feel like you care, and don't be a nerd to them. 40% of this type of job is actually being able to fix a computer. The rest is customer service. 

 

2. What you think is best, is not always best. Be careful about recommending hardware upgrades etc to customers. Customers, again, have the final say, are generally computer illiterate, and you need to be able to find the balance between what you know is best for them, and what they will be okay with. You cannot recommend a $200 GPU for most customers you will run into. Most customers only spend $350 on black Friday for their crappy dell, and if you start saying they need $400 in parts to "get it up to date" (which by the way, hardly anyone will care about that as long as it plays youtube videos and facebook - they are happy) you will loose a customer to the local big box store to buy another crappy dell. 

 

3. Don't be annoying to your "boss" and "coworkers" by being a know-it-all. 90% of what you learned in college about computers is worthless when it comes to fixing computers as a profession. Your boss and coworkers have a wealth of knowledge that you can ONLY get from experience. This knowledge covers everything from being able to diagnose 50% of problems within a minute of hearing the symptoms, knowing how to pull apart a particular model of laptop, to knowing how best to communicate to certain "problem customers". Again, it's only 40% ability to fix a computer, the rest is customer service anyway. 

 

4. Recognize there is a business. It's very easy to give free advice, fix stuff at the front counter, spend 30m on the phone with someone, just out of the goodness of your heart. Every business is different, but you do have a business to fund, and you need to make money for that business. 

 

5. Time is a factor. Spending 3 days to fix a computer like you normally would for a relative will not fly in most shops. 24 hrs is what we had from the time we took it off the waiting line before we had a diagnostic and options for the customer. In most cases it was within minutes. You diagnose and quote prices and fixes BEFORE you do most of the fixing (sometimes you need to fix some things before you can know for sure what the problem is). GOOGLE IS YOUR FRIEND.

 

6. Multitasking is sometimes crucial. I would work on 4-6 computers at the same time, based on the involvement needed. Virus removals are pretty straightforward and I can have scans and fixes running at the same time I was replacing a broken screen or doing a data recovery or building a computer. 

 

7. Virus removals, Computer tune ups (it's slow, can you make it faster?), broken screens/keyboards (lots of angry people in this world...). This will take up 95% of your work. The rest is bizarre random stuff (these are the best).

 

8. Have a strong stomach. Open up a 10 year old computer owned by a chain smoker, and you will want to puke. Open up a laptop and see the keyboard, you will also want to puke. 

 

9. People will cry because of you, and people will yell at you. Baby pictures are really important - you will realise this when you recover the lost files from a broken external drive, or when you have to call a lady and tell her they are gone forever. Just be ready for the customer service stuff.

 

10. Have fun! Like I said, I had a blast with that job, and 3 years later I still keep in touch with my coworkers to play video games, hang out, etc. 

 

Hope this helps!

 

A couple random pictures from that Job:

[TetraSky]

Ask all the questions you can. Unless the other employees are total asses, they should answer you well enough.

 

This might not apply if it's just a small computer shop, but if it's a big one with lots of employees, from my own experience:

If you are told to not do something by the big boss who accepted your internship, make sure to not do that same thing just because someone else tells you to do it.

I got burned for that during my intership when a store manager asked me to take care of clients when the boss specifically told me to not talk to the clients and if one talked to me, to redirect them to another employee... Was told I should've just told the manager to go see the boss. It may be kind of hard to do considering he's technically higher up than you... but still do it, you're an intern, not an actual employee, meaning you do not answer to that guy, you answer to the boss.

[Leonard]

Hello my fellow nerds! Recently I have been offered a position as an intern at a computer shop. From what I know, they do a little bit of everything, repair, building, and selling. I don't know any exact details of what I'll be doing there, but I will probably be doing a bit of repair and a bit of building. Even though I drool over gpu's on Newegg, keep up with the news, and know just about everything you need to know, I have very little hands on experience. I also know mostly about building from scratch, and not repair, though I do have a good undertstanding of how parts work. Any general advice or rules of thumb that I should know?

Do your best not to destroy anything and make sure you be the first one there and the last to leave.

[Heisenbleurgh]

Ask questions, be curious, follow orders, be nice.

[RazeG3SG1]

Ask questions on any area you don't understand. Pay attention to what the boss teaches you especially screen or keyboard replacement.

Also for PC building, as most of your customer are likely to be tech illiterate, non overclocking parts are your best friend and sometimes even P.O.S power supply too. Oh and not to mention not adding SSD.

Finally, Mac will usually appear for SSD upgrades or keyboard replacement. I wish you good luck in not going crazy when swapping keyboard.

[killstr3ak]

All good advice so far. Good luck! How old are you by the way?

[Syntaxvgm]

GOOGLE

[Phillyphries]

encourage your customers to screw themselves when you extort them to buy ridiculous $hit

 

muahahahahahahahah

[nosirrah123]

encourage your customers to screw themselves when you extort them to buy ridiculous $hit

muahahahahahahahah

It's a small shop, and it opened relatively recently, so I imagine they're closer to GabeN than EA on the evil scale.

[Lord Gaben]

Combofix and Malwarebytes are your friends. Also work on your social skills, being able to communicate with customers and make them happy is just as important as fixing their computer. Also don't waste your time troubleshooting stuff, just Google it to see how other people fixed it.

Dont forget Linux for recovery

[Tech_Dreamer]

Rule of thumb , you're gonna meet a lotta people that are gonna come up with stupid excuse & try to blame you for the problem @ the end, Don't/Never mind it & Don't argue with them just steer clear of them (make up a mediocre excuse to give yourself time) do what you know with perfection & ask what you don't know. Learn something new each day, play with new thing safely or in a safe enviornment, take the risks, you'll manage fine, & ofcourse you will eventually do something stupid or worse you make a worse mess out of an already worse situation( a lotta 'worse' in that sentence)

 

Just stay calm , mean time Go through some of the linus's earliest video(really old ncix videos of him) & see how he recoveres from awkward situation(he wasn't always like this you know..), you can learn from that.you'll get better each day, don't worry about it. & always wear an anti-static wrist/ankle strap.

 

Double check the outcome if you're looking up a problem online & ALWAYS go through the comment section while looking up troubleshooting scenarios.

 

You'll do fine, Congratulations & good luck with the job..

[SadTech]

No matter how 'dull' something appears, pay attention and be interested in everything enthusiasm and eager to learn any and all aspects will be looked upon fondly.

 

Little things can make a big difference.

 

If they ask you if you understand and you don't, say no so they can explain it differently again until you do understand. Might sound obvious but so many people say Yes when they don't understand something that has been explained to them, it's totally fine to say you don't understand.

 

That last statement is huge, do not be afraid to ask questions. If you don't understand something let them know so you can get it right, that is how you learn. 

 

Just absorb everything, ask for as many hours as you can get and any overtime if it available.