Computer Experts on Call : Consultants who drop in on PC users at home to train and explain are in great demand. Private lessons offer several advantages over group sessions.
Karen and Geoffrey Lower didn’t quite know what to do with the collection of wiring and microchips they brought home from the computer store. The hardware, software and accessories of their Packard Bell personal computer were a little overwhelming.
“We were sort of your typical couple who goes into the store and buys the whole program, then comes home, plugs it in and has no idea what they’re doing,” explains Karen Lower, 33. “We were happy just to get the screen on.”
Computer stores offered classes, but the timing was inconvenient, and Lower was referred to someone who gives private lessons.
Sandra Yates-Thompson to the rescue.
Yates-Thompson, 46, is a computer consultant who makes house calls. A computer coach. A personal trainer for you and your PC.
More than 100 people have full-time computer-training jobs in the San Fernando Valley and probably twice that many do free-lance consulting, says Ray Burke, 33, a software training specialist at CompUSA in Woodland Hills. For many, private consulting starts out as a personal favor. A friend asks if they’ll come over and install some programs. Then a friend of that friend calls with printer trouble. The next thing they know, they have business cards and are turning people away.
Yates-Thompson started Lower at the very beginning: turning the computer on and launching the programs. They moved on to using the CD-ROM. By the end of the 90-minute lesson, Lower was using the word processor and clip art.
“When she left, I could turn around to my desk and get some work done,” says Lower, who runs an entertainment management company out of her Woodland Hills home.
No matter where she worked, Yates-Thompson was the woman to call when you couldn’t get your document to print or your disk drive to save. She started working on computers in 1971 as a key-punch operator. Then, five years of secretarial temp work made her proficient with every kind of business computer on the market.
Computer training was something she did on and off starting in 1987, and in 1993 it seemed like good part-time work while she attended Santa Monica College to study naturopathic medicine. CompUSA wanted her a few days a week. And then individuals started calling. And then some of those individuals owned companies . . .
She put off her medical ambitions a year ago and started consulting “at least 40 hours a week” at $50 an hour or $300 a day. The instruction she provides is in such demand, she says, that she’s “afraid to advertise.”
“I have to schedule time off for myself because I work evenings and weekends,” says Yates-Thompson. “A few weeks ago, I had to tell everybody that I was busy just to get a week off.”
*
There are as many reasons to hire a computer coach as there are ways to use a computer. Some people are trying to catch up with the revolution. Many have small businesses and want to learn spreadsheets or accounting programs. Some already learned the basics in a class, but can’t find good advanced training.
“People pay a lot of money to take classes, and they come out learning absolutely nothing. If a person invests all this money in a computer . . . they should be able to use the computer to its fullest advantage,” Yates-Thompson says.
For some, a computer class is enough. But there are always cases where people prefer one-on-one instruction, says CompUSA’s Burke, who did private consulting from 1989 to 1993.
“In the classroom, they can’t raise their hand and say, ‘I’ve got this and that,’ because they’d be monopolizing the instructor’s time,” he says. “When you do it one on one, they feel like, ‘Hey, he’s my own teacher.’ They feel more comfortable calling you at home, and they know you’re familiar with their specific situation.”
Once you’ve found a computer coach, he or she can make the intricacies of RAM and bytes simple. The hard part is finding the coach. Some computer stores won’t make referrals. And most free-lance consultants don’t advertise. Often it’s a matter of stumbling onto the right person who has the right phone number.
Connecting Point in Calabasas takes a slightly different approach. About half of the 18 salespeople will do free-lance training after work, says manager Jimmy Foster. He even tries to match up customers with the employee whose personality best matches theirs. The salespeople charge from $50 to $75 an hour for basic individual instruction, a good deal compared to the $75 to $85 that retail computer stores charge.
Other companies in the Valley do nothing but train. Comp ‘n Kids offers computer lessons for children and adults for $28 to $32 an hour at its Encino storefront classroom, says co-owner Wendy Travolta. At-home lessons cost $45 an hour, but about 20% of her clients are willing to pay more to work on their own machines.
For an instructor, Travolta says, the experience can be frustrating. The whole family is gathered around the computer, the phone is ringing, the TV is on--and only one person can click the mouse.
“The children want to learn something, and the adults want to learn something, and they all want to do it in an hour,” says Travolta. “It’s not like learning to program a VCR. Computers can come with 100 programs.”
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
WHERE TO GO
What: At-home computer coaching.
Call: Sandra Yates-Thompson, (818) 993-7105.
Price: $50 an hour.
Call: Connecting Point, (818) 222-3822.
Price: $50 to $75 an hour.
Call: Comp ‘n Kids, (818) 905-9110.
Price: $45 an hour.
