There are STILL some people who don't understand why I hate working on computers and dealing with punters who treat me like they were Edwardian lords and ladies of the manor and I was their bloody second under-footman, so let me say this again and let off a bit of steam in the process.
There's a nice lady in the next village whose computer I've fettled a couple of times; she even gave me a vegetable peeler to go with my new career, which was nice of her.
Then some friend of hers who has a house in the same village got in touch asking me to 'Put a French server' on her laptop; connect her to the internet here in France, it turned out she meant.
So I did that, setting up her e-mail so she still uses the same account here as in the UK (which she didn't know she could do) and updating her machine with a few hours worth of patches, anti-virus software, firewall, anti-spyware and all the other stuff. I billed her for three hours.
Then she called and said that it wouldn't connect to the internet and the printer was bust, would I call round? So I did, when she was back in the UK. Internet connection worked just fine for me and the printer's problem was that the paper guide needed to be slid from the position marked 'A5 paper' to the one marked 'A4 paper'. Voilą, bill for 15 minutes.
So then over the weekend - bank holiday weekend here - 11 am on Sunday morning, she called. It doesn't work, she can't connect to the internet, what have I done to her machine; I try asking what the error message says when she connects and that it worked fine for me because as she knows, I sent her an e-mail to test the link and she received it.
But instead of telling me what the error message was - I already had a strong idea about what she was doing but I wanted to make sure - she launched into a rant about how she'd paid me in good faith (no cheque received for the second visit yet, mind you) and that this wasn't good enough and how vital the computer is to her busy and important life and - well, at this point I put the phone down.
She called again yesterday, Bank Holiday Monday, asking me to go round that day as it still wasn't working. No hint of an apology so I didn't return the call.
And now she calls again today, all bright and cheerful to say that - Oh, silly me, I was forgetting to click the icon to connect first and now it all works. Tra-la-la!
Well, I say, cocking the gun in preparation for giving her both barrels, I would have told you that on Sunday if you hadn't launched into a rude diatribe about how you'd paid me in good faith; you would, I told her, have been told just this by me if you'd paused for a moment and told me what the error messages were instead of ranting at me in your best 'I'm an important Londoner don't you know who I am' impression.
I don't deal with rudeness, I hang up on rude people - especially as you haven't paid your second bill anyway.
Second bill? she queried. I haven't received a second bill. And you mean I have to pay for your visit to come and check the internet functioning and sort out the printer?
Well, I wondered, do you think I should do this for free?
She sighed. She had, she said, no intention of being rude and didn't realise she was being rude.
Which, in my book, makes it even worse than doing it deliberately, really - it shows a complete lack of sympathy and comprehension and politeness, you're just assuming that the hired help is happy with whatever crumbs you happen to let fall off the table.
So I told her we'd both learned a lesson here and hung up again. Although I suspect only one of us has - mine's to never deal with her again; she, I fear, believes she's done nothing wrong and that I'm the rude one here.