Billing for time is always on a case-by-case basis. There are a lot of factors that go into any decision, but if you are being helpful to someone and you job is technical support, than you probably should be billing help like this one. If you are doing something else for the customer like developing an application for them then getting some good will with help like this as "added-value" only enhances your customer relationship.

You make an excellent point. I will use YOUR forum to extend that point. I want to encourage "techies" to cut the users some slack. Yes, I know that we all have dealt with extremely frustrating users, but I would suggest to do what I do when I encounter these people. Harken back to WHEN you had very little, if any, experience with computers and how uninformed you were. Put yourself in their place. Typically, they are in "pain" and want you to relieve that pain. They are just trying to do their job and (subconsciously or not) have only committed to learning JUST ENOUGH to get by.

Your blog reminds me of two of my favorite "help desk" calls. The first one was a similar issue where it just wasn't the DELETE key, but the entire keyboard that wasn't working. After 10 minutes on the phone having them check the keyboard connection (which, of course, included trying to tell them WHICH cable went to the keyboard and WHERE it SHOULD be plugged into the computer), no solution was found. I was going to be in the area that afternoon and told them I could re-address the issue then. When I showed up, it took me less than five seconds to figure out the problem was once I observed what they were doing. The cause… They were looking at the monitor, but typing on the keyboard of the IBM Selectric sitting NEXT to the monitor. The second was when a user called to tell me about some sort of "Chinese writing" on the computer. My first guess was that they were looking at a bunch of ASCII characters, etc. Still, no solution could be found and, again, I said I could drop by later in the day, but in the meantime I told them they should take some screen shots so I could see what this application was doing when I got there. When I showed up, the user proudly pulled out his screen shots; four Polaroid pictures of his monitor with the "Chinese" writing. I laugh about those incidents to this day, but I would never "insult" the user with the stupidity of their issue. Sometimes, they ARE telling you EXACTLY what is happening.

Bestest,
…Dave