It’s always nice to feel appreciated when you do favors for people.  Any geek finds themselves doing lots and lots of favors for his non-geek friends and relatives more often than you’d expect.  The problem presents itself when you start to feel taken advantage of.  I think this is the day you start to realize nobody is even thanking you anymore.  People are just telling you what they need, walking away and only talking to you when they’re checking to see if you’re done or not.  

So what if someone does this to you in your professional life?  What if you find that someone at work is taking advantage of what you know for their personal benefit without money changing hands or even a thank you?  Does this mean they have no respect for you?  My interpretation is: Yes, that’s exactly what that means.  

This isn’t an advice column.  I can’t write those.  What I’m talking about is a question of fairness.  Please tell me if you think this is fair:

A guy who codes websites for a company is asked by the owner to make a website for one of his other companies.  This web developer is paid a consulting fee for his services because it’s not the company he is working directly for.  Meanwhile…

A guy who fixes hardware, takes care end-user and server support, is asked to set up a series of devices and services and troubleshoot all of them- for personal use by the same person, and is not paid anything over his laughable normal salary.

Is this fair?