> The response is usually, "Oh, cool. my computer has been doing this funny thing for the past month and I can't figure it out, would you mind taking a look at it?"
A doctor and a lawyer are at a party and someone comes up to the doctor saying "I have this small problem that ..."
The doctor answers curtly, tactfully, as politely as possible, finally getting rid of them, then turns back to the lawyer and says "I hate that. Do you have the same problem with people constantly harrassing you?"
"Yes," said the lawyer. The doctor replied "What do you do?"
"I give them short, simple but accurate advice, and then the following day I send them a bill for my time charged at my usual rates."
"Fantastic!" said the doctor. "I'll try that."
The next day the doctor gets an invoice from the lawyer ...
I once had this kind of response from a lawyer when I told him what I did. I said to him that if you needed a criminal lawyer you wouldn't ask a intellectual property lawyer you met at a party to help out. I could see him thinking about fees.
That sounds pretty good, actually. It's neither self-deprecating nor self-aggrandizing, and provides just enough information to satisfy the demands of the conversation if the person doesn't care about computer stuff, and enough to start a conversation if they do.
No, it's incredibly condescending and leaves no opening for further questioning. What sort of response could a non-technical person have to that question: "So uh... how's that going then?".
I can't believe that everyone here is so well versed in delivering the elevator pitch for their new iPhone Web 2.0 social scrapbooking app but can't describe what they do succinctly in a social context. Is it that hard to say "I write software for [insert type(s) of clients/employer] that [insert function of software]"? People have seen The Matrix, they know what a computer programmer is. If you say "I do computer stuff", you deserve to have them ask you to fix theirs because it's one of 3 possible ways to respond to that statement.
Fixed your response.