It is great when you can help your parents with technology and get things set up for them, but it can also be really frustrating.

What would you do if your parents asked you to help them set up a home security system, but they already bought the cheapest one to save money, even though it obviously didn’t have the features they would want?

That is what happened to the young man in this story, so he tried to explain to his dad what options they had, but he just got upset and said he would do it himself.

This type of situation is all too common in families, unfortunately. Read through the full story below and see if it feels familiar to you.

Knowing just enough to waste your time and money

Standard disclaimer: I’m not an IT professional, but I’m very technically literate and living at home with my family and periodically fixing stuff for their business while (hopefully) finishing my PhD. Characters: $me=Me, $mom=my mother, and $dad=my father.

Let’s see what happens.

Over dinner one day:

$mom: I think we’d like to get a home surveillance system, would you be willing to help us find and install one?

$me: Sure, just let me know how many cameras, limitations, and budget, and I’ll start doing some research.

Home security systems are very popular and a great idea.

$mom: Alright, let me talk to $dad and we’ll figure out what we want.

Being very busy all the time, this slips my mind and they never follow up about it. All is fine until one day they come home with a home surveillance system.

Odd that they don’t ask him to research it before purchasing.

Seems simple enough, five cameras and a DVR looking box, but I didn’t examine it too closely. This was in the middle of the week, so I say that I’ll give them a hand with installing it over the weekend.

Flash forward couple of days, and my father installed it on his own while I was out (he was very excited)… until I got home to help “finish” installing it.

$dad: How do I connect this to the wifi?

All modern security systems can connect to WiFi.

$me: What?

$dad: You know, like our phones and laptops.

$me: Where’s the manual?

$dad: In the box it came in.

So, he didn’t look at the manual at all while setting it up?

Oh no… OH NO… I walk over to the box to find the manual still seemingly untouched in a bag with a few other accessories. I begin flipping through the manual.

$me: The manual makes no mention of wifi, but you can connect the ethernet port on the back to our router and that should work.

$dad: what you mean?

Wait, how much did he spend?

$me: The system isn’t wireless.

$dad: Well I didn’t spend $10 on this for it not to be wireless.

Yes, that’s not a typo… He got it for $10 from some yard sale.

Wired systems are sometimes faster anyway.

$me: You’re already running a bunch of wires, just grab the 50ft Ethernet cable in our misc cable drawer and run it to the router.

$dad: It has a USB port, why don’t you just run to the store and grab one of the USB wifi dongles you got for your mother’s and sister’s computers?

It can’t connect to WiFi, but that isn’t a big deal.

$me: I understand why you think that might work, but no where in the documentation does it make any mention of compatibility with wifi adapters, and generally when a device would support something like that, it’d list some models or minimum specs… and the manual only mentions using the included mouse or an external drive with the USB ports.

$dad: So what kind of wifi adapter do we need?

$me: None.

He just isn’t getting it.

$dad: So how do we connect it to the wifi?

$me: You don’t.

$dad: I THOUGHT IT WAS WIRELESS?

Dad is tired of running wires, I guess.

My palm begins approaching my face.

$me: the only way this is connecting to the internet is if a) you run an ethernet cable from the router or b) we buy another router that supports being a media bridge/access point.

$dad: I DON’T WANT TO RUN ANY MORE WIRES. I’VE BEEN RUNNING WIRES ALL DAY. I THOUGHT YOU WERE SMART? FIX THIS FOR ME.

Running another wire would be really easy.

$me: You spent $10 on this, and the minimum fix that probably won’t work is $20 for a wifi adapter or at least $50 for another router to act as an access point… or you could just use the 50 or so feet of Ethernet cable, which I originally bought, to fix this for the cost of drilling another hole in the wall a few cable clips.

This is what happens when you refuse to read the manual or do basic research for anything you buy. You always buy the cheapest stuff and get angry when it doesn’t do what you needed or breaks in a few months.

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Good luck, Dad.

$dad: Fine. I’ll fix this myself since you’re useless.

I probably didn’t need to say that last part, and this is mostly venting because they’re still being mean about this even though none of this is my fault.

If they are going to treat him like this, he shouldn’t help at all.

At least the cameras and local recording seems to be working, but alas, no remote viewing. I’m waiting to see if they get the wifi adapter and try to plug it in to the box.

The next thing I was going to do to prove this was a bad idea was to borrow one off of another machine, but after that last exchange, I just checked out and left.

At some point, Dad will come crawling back to get him to fix it. Unfortunately, it likely won’t come with an apology.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about what happened.

Sometimes you have to keep the peace.

This is a great way to deal with it.

People of any generation can act like this.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a sister who refuses to give up her own holiday traditions to spend the day with her family at her brother’s cabin.

Don’t give them options with this type of thing.

This person won’t help his parents anymore because they act the same way.

If his parents aren’t appreciative of what he is doing, then he shouldn’t help them at all. Their demands are unreasonable.

They come to him for tech help, but they don’t listen, which is very frustrating.