There’s a product some of my clients use that makes me want to vomit in my mouth.
I won’t name it, but you might be able to guess what it is. And I’m not alone. Every technology professional has some product that they detest. A software application or an operating system or a cloud-based subscription service that they can’t stand. Years of accumulated evidence about a flawed, overpriced product, actively hostile to the person paying for it in some cases. We techs have read about the vulnerabilities. We’ve watched the subscription quietly creep up in price. We’ve been made aware of the telemetry collecting data our clients didn’t agree to sharing. We’ve watched a multi-billion dollar company ship a product that requires weekly updates to fix errors that existed the moment it was installed, and we’ve thought to ourselves: who would buy a car that needs to go to the repair shop the minute they drive it off the lot? Who would plug a new television into their living room wall, press the power button on the remote control, and have to navigate six menus just to watch a show?
I would. Because that flawed product paid my mortgage. It paid for my car. It enabled me to have a successful 30-year career in technology support, because I was paid to apply fixes to known problems for my clients. I find the irony to be sadly laughable. The product I have disdain for is the same product that fed my family.
My clients still use the product, and they have no intention of stopping. They’re willingly paying an annual subscription for it because they choose not to learn an alternative way of composing a letter or managing their email. That subscription is the cost of comfortable computing. It’s what they know, and when something goes wrong with it, they call me.
This is where the technology consigliere demonstrates their worth.
In the 1972 movie The Godfather, Tom Hagen never yelled at his boss, Vito Corleone. When the boss’ son Sonny was blustering about going to war with other crime families in New York, Hagen raised his voice to meet the volume in the room, but never with the Don, he counseled. He advised. He explained the risks, the costs, and the alternatives. When Don Corleone made a decision Hagen would not have made himself, Hagen served the decision. That was his job. The consigliere doesn’t run the family. The consigliere serves the family, and the family chooses.
I sit at a client’s computer desk, watching them struggle with a misleading subscription page with funny math and dark patterns. Something inside me is screaming. I want to explain to my client why this company doesn’t deserve their money. I want to walk them through the telemetry settings they’ve never seen and show them what’s being collected. I want to recommend alternatives I’ve personally tested that would cost them less and respect their privacy and data sovereignty more. I have a Lewis Black rant building in my gut, and it would feel cathartic to let it rip.
But the client didn’t invite me into their home to hear my full-throated opinions about the technology industry. They want me in their home because something isn’t working, and they need help. They need a calming presence. They need technical competence. They need the consigliere, not the critic.
So I quietly breathe in through my nostrils, and I quietly exhale through parted lips. I toss my judgmental jacket outside on the front porch where they won’t see it. And I help them with the software application they chose, the operating system they’re comfortable with, or the annual subscription they paid for. I confirm it’s updated. I ensure their subscription will not expire unexpectedly, and is the appropriate tier for what they actually use. I make sure their settings protect their privacy as much as the product allows. And if they directly ask me whether there’s something better out there, I tell them the truth. I lay out the options, I explain the trade-offs, and I give them my honest opinion with their best interests in mind.
Then I let them choose.
Most of the time they stay with what they know, and that’s totally fine. Because the moment I start making my clients feel judged for their technology choices is the moment I stop being a consigliere and start being the gatekeeper I recently wrote about. The tech geek who made people feel small for not knowing what he knew? I left that era behind. I don’t breathe life back into that stereotype just because my opinions are better informed now.
The hardest part of my work isn’t the technology. It’s the restraint my work requires. It’s sitting with someone I care about, watching them use something I’d never install on my own machine, and knowing that my asking them to relearn decades of muscle memory for my peace of mind isn’t a call I get to make. The consigliere advises. The client decides. The consigliere serves the decision.
I think about this as I have gradually been building a practice where I’ll be sitting in people’s homes, helping families with their digital lives. There will be products in those homes that I would never buy myself. The software subscription charge on their credit card statement will make my neck twitch. And I will set my judgmental jacket outside on the front porch, smile, and ask them to show me what’s going on.
The honor I have with being invited into someone’s home to help with their technology doesn’t give me carte blanche to impose my preferences. Their invitation is a gift of trust. And that trust requires me to serve the person in front of me, not the version of their technology landscape I wish they had.
Tom Hagen served the Corleone family for decades. He didn’t always agree with the decisions, but he served to the best of his ability.
More later...