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When my dad died suddenly in 2015 and I cleared out his office at his job, I spun down his Win95 machine that he'd been using for essential coding and testing. My father was that programmer—the one who directly spoke to a limited number of clients and stakeholders because he had a tendency to ask people if they were stupid.
Your dad sounds like the childhood hero of mine who got me into computers.
Severe ADHD prevented me from ever learning to code, but I became damn good at repairs and things and just general understanding of computers because he was available to ask questions at almost any time.
He went to school auctions every year and got me a pile of hardware to learn from. He never asked for anything in exchange. All around great guy.
I heard him on the phone a few times dealing with the people who he worked with though. Good god he was mean. I couldn’t imagine him being that way with me ever, but he was brutal when it came to work and money.
A dude called him one time while I was sitting there, he listened for a few minutes and he said, “I’ve got a 14 year old kid here, he’s been doing this stuff for about 2 years. I’m gonna let him walk you through this for the 10th fucking time because you’re a goddamn idiot and feeling like a fool when you hang up the phone with a grown man isn’t teaching you any lessons. Maybe get a pen for this one because if I have to remind that a child walked you through it last time, I’m not going to be so fucking friendly.” I was so nervous, apologized multiple times, when I was finished walking him through it he took the phone and said, “now don’t you feel stupid? 25 years and this kid just schooled you.”
He told me, “you gotta be real with idiots or they’ll bother you with stupid problems every single day of your life.”
I wish that lesson had stuck haha, it just wasn’t in me to be mean. As a result, a hobby that I was passionate about all of my life is something I avoid like the plague now. People ruined it for me by bothering me constantly.
I think it's nice of you not to be mean. The industry turned me a bit mean as a defence against people constantly shoveling more work onto me. Try to protect it if you can! I miss my lack of mean dearly.
I seriously have a boiling hatred for computers now because I couldn’t even be a little bit mean. I’ve snapped a few times when people blamed me for problems years after I worked on their stuff, but mostly I just got trampled on and robbed at every turn because I didn’t want to upset anyone.
By the time I was mean enough to demand payment and things like that, I already hated it.
My daughter is passionate about computers, so nowadays if I so much as want to tweak something a little bit I let her do it unless she don’t want to. I don’t want to burn her out too.
That sucks my dude, it sounds like some really shitty people ruined something you liked. So far I've found that the only way to protect yourself against that stuff is to set healthy boundaries. It doesn't have to be rude, but unfortunately some people see it that way. It's a rough time.