This post originally appeared in the Kenosha News as part of the column Sunday Mornings With Basil Willis – January 9, 2011

Working with technology is what I love to do. It puts milk on the table and Kenosha News on the tablet. I feel very fortunate to be able to make a living doing something that is essentially a hobby for me, something I do in my spare time at home out of curiosity, for free.

While my love of computers and technology led to a career I enjoy, it did not come without a cost. Very quickly I became the default tech support option for everyone I knew. And not just for computers, but anything that plugged into a wall or had blinking lights. I found myself troubleshooting a mirrored disco ball this holiday season. I told the owner that I unfortunately skipped class at UW Madison the day they taught disco ball repair.

The circle that I provide support to started out very small; people with whom I share ancestors or knew carnally. As computer use and the Internet grew in popularity, the circle began to grow. People in my support circle happily offered up my services to people in their circles. Uncles of friends, cousins of neighbors, parents of coworkers and so on. “I know a guy,” they would say.

Please do not read the manual for the new thing you just bought. Call Basil. Have a problem with your Dell that is still under warranty? Don’t call Dell for free, call Basil. Can’t understand “Steve,” who is not really named Steve and is obviously sitting in a noisy call center with other people not named Steve? No problem, call Basil. Can’t get on the Innerweb? There’s a Basil for that.

Whether it’s a blue screen of death, a wireless router, a web site that needs fixing or an iPhone that needs jailbreaking, there’s a Basil for that too.

Truth be told, I love helping people. A good deal of the support I do is really teaching; how to maintain a computer, how to avoid Web scams or explaining that the tray that slides out of the box is a CD drive, not a coffee cup holder.

People are often frustrated or afraid of technology and simplifying it and making it accessible is rewarding, especially for the elderly. So is being called a “genius,” after saving family photos or the 50-page doctoral thesis from a balky hard drive. I make it a point not to tell them I know a couple of 14-year-olds that could have done it too.

I started noticing an interesting pattern with people asking me for help. I have a friend who is an accountant, but I would not ask him to do my taxes for free. I would not ask my mechanic friend to do my brakes for free, nor would I ask my stylist friend to cut my hair for free. But for some reason people are not afraid to ask geeks to “look at my computer that is running really slow.” It got to the point where I had to start charging, more as a deterrent than a source of income.

I don’t blame people for seeking out the nearest, least expensive geek they can find. Support numbers have become a never-ending maze of automated menus and chat bots. By the time you actually get to a human, if you ever do, they don’t speak English as their primary language and follow a script that is designed to get you off the phone as quickly as possible. Services at big box stores are ridiculously expensive.

I have remote control software installed on the computers of my mom in Florida and my brother in Madison. My mom usually logs a support call about once a month. I know right away by her tone. “I really screwed something up this time.” I don’t charge her because she already paid with a long, painful labor followed by an 18-year sentence of rambunctious boys.

My brother, who crawls around the dark side of the Web and has never seen a shady link or free offer he didn’t like, contracts viruses a couple times per year, which happens to coincide with the couple times per year he calls me. I have his computer wrapped as tightly now as the little brother in the movie Christmas Story.

The biggest burden of geekdom is at home. Every time my wife sees a commercial for wireless speakers or someone controlling their house lighting or car from their iPhone, I get a sideways glance and a smarmy comment about my ineffectiveness. “I live with a technology Yoda and we have six remote controls for our TV.”

I’ll give her that. Like the carpenter who always gets to his own house last, I’ve let our home tech get a little raggedy. There is a long to-do list that I will attack, as soon as I work my way through the support calls.

I guess I should enjoy it while it lasts. The freelance money is good and geeks will not be chic forever. The generations behind me are growing up with this stuff and someday we’ll figure out how to make hardware and software that doesn’t break. But something tells me no matter how good we make things, as long as there are people trying to use them, there will be a need for help.