Aaaah... this is something that really gets me going. When technology fails on me, I feel like throwing it at the sky through the ceiling.
I'm doing my MSc and am living with my parents in the meantime. My stepdad 'manages' the tech our house. Although we're far from skint, he's always had ridiculous habits like reusing food waste bags to save money until the basement smells of landfill and my mum wants to kill him. I am
not exaggerating.
So instead of buying
one reliable high bandwidth router, that might cost up to £250... he of course thought he'd "save money" by buying some cheap sheit that intermittently drops the internet connection. Considering that our house measures 5 storeys from basement to attic, and I live in the attic... I have to storm up and down the house at least 5 times a day to reset the damn thing, and often it doesn't work, so have to run up and down checking if I get a signal in the attic.
In the meantime, he's spent extra money on:
- range extenders
- wall-plug adapters for range extenders (because he ordered them abroad to save money, and they came with the 'wrong plug'
- powerline adapters
- more wall-plug adapters for the powerline adapters
All these peripherals add up to about £150, and none of them make a difference when the main router drops.
Like bruh... you could just spend that and a little bit more upfront and avoid all the heaps of cables and junk people now have to trip over around the house. And avoid all the time wasted being a amateur part-time IT technician.
In the meantime I upgraded my phone contract so I get 12GB of internet a month, and it never fails. Except when the 12GB runs out because our home internet fails.
Does anyone understand how such a person's mind works? They
obviously don't save themselves money, especially when you factor in the non-refundable time and energy they waste on it. Do they enjoy the stress and hassle? Is it a hobby to them? Or a sport? Is it not better to just pay more up-front and have peace of mind? Instead of impulse buying garbage because it went on sale and you had a few minutes to make a choice?
Anyone else has parents like this?