Best Results From Bartering Computer Services? 1022
silicon not in the v writes "Last night I was over at some friends' house. They had cable modem with no firewall and tons of spyware, etc. on their system. They complained about all the popups and how bad it was that they were afraid to let their kids on the computer, so I set them up with ZoneAlarm, Ad Aware, and Firefox to get it cleaned up. In return, the husband, who is a chiropractor, gave my wife and I a free adjustment. What other interesting services or benefits have people been able to get by bartering IT/programming services?"
Will Work For Bandwidth. (Score:4, Interesting)
I also have a nice thing going where I host his users (on my servers), and he sends people needing web design to me.
It works out nicely.
taxes (Score:5, Interesting)
Way back in the early 1990s (Score:5, Interesting)
Lodging in a foreign country! (Score:5, Interesting)
My favorite thus far was an offer from a couple in Ireland who offered a night's lodging and a hearty Irish breakfast should we ever visit their fair country--in exchange for the bonus level pack.
Even though we probably won't hav ethe opportunity to take them up on the offer anytime soon, it was made in earnest, and I was happy to send them a copy of the level pack in return. Even though I can't buy beer 'n' pizza with it, this "barter" has proven far more memorable than the typical few bucks plonked in the PayPal account...
I am so tired of food... (Score:3, Interesting)
free as in beer -- a keg full (Score:3, Interesting)
Beer! (Score:2, Interesting)
Wisconsin cheese.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Plastic Surgery (Score:5, Interesting)
I think that beats your bone bending...
Bartering is overrated. (Score:2, Interesting)
Although I HAVE traded flight time in my uncles Cessna 172 once. That was a good deal.
I got.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Family Barter is the Best (Score:3, Interesting)
A room of my own (Score:2, Interesting)
Bartering is a way of life around here (Score:3, Interesting)
a boat and trailer
snakes (pet snakes)
several dinners both home cooked and for restaurants
a condo for a week on the gulf
brownies and fresh baked goodies from Publix
remodeling on my house
stove
fridge
tires for my car
VCD's of old DragonBallZ bootlegs
Shiny new Columbia 300 Spirit (Score:5, Interesting)
By the way, the new ball added almost 30 pins to my average right out of the gate. If you can lay your hands on an original Spirit, they're awesome!
how about a condo for six weeks? (Score:3, Interesting)
By the way, I long ago decided not to charge money for my services. I always get something much more valuable when I ask for in-kind payment!
Wish you were here!
tattoo's (Score:2, Interesting)
Free gaming time (Score:1, Interesting)
So yeah, I get free gaming time in exchange for having a brother with computer skills. In my book, I'd call that a good trade.
Re:Unwanted but favorable recommendations... (Score:4, Interesting)
Got my first apartment furnished for free (Score:5, Interesting)
A month or so before I moved into my first apartment she was moving out of her one-bedroom to live with her new fiance, and so in return for my work she called me up and gave me all the furniture from her old apartment provided I move it out.
I ended up getting a futon, couch, kitchen table and chairs, two clothes chests, a couple end tables, and a slew of kitchen stuff (plates, glasses, pots etc), all in excellent condition. She essentially totally furnished my new place and it cost me nothing.
I consider this to be the best example of good karma at work I've experienced to date.
Lots of stuff (Score:4, Interesting)
Another client distributed natural foods and always sent me off with a few bags of goodies - they always had a stack of stuff that was fine except for damaged labels and such.
I ended up with some suits/ties/etc. from a men's clothier.
Dealing with IRS accounting for all that is a pain, though.
Will work for food (Score:3, Interesting)
Fixing computers, on the other hand, is mostly a one time job and results in random ways of payment - from nothing, through beer, to paychecks. There are no limits, really.
Re:IRS (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course if prostitution was legalized, there would be a lot less crime in this country, and the spread of diseases would be WAY down (ala the red light district in Amsterdam). I've known people who have traded various smokeable items for computer work in the past, that and car service are the two most memorable exchanges. Generally if somone is willing to trade sex for computer service, you're either already dating them, or the sex isn't worth the price paid
A nice Harley Motorcyle! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Unwanted but favorable recommendations... (Score:5, Interesting)
My friends will always complain and moan and complain and moan about their computers being hosed and their connections being slow. One even complained constantly that he couldn't get his new wireless AP to service the whole house, or how he was going to have to run a separate hardline down to the basement so that he could hook up his new Xbox.
Now these are people I've known all my life. One time I discussed, with a third-party friend, the possibility of offering my services for a fee. We both agreed,"Look, if you try to charge them for it not only will they decline, but they'll redouble their computer complaints, everyone will have to listen to it, and you'll be lucky if they offer you a beer next time you're over to watch the football game."
So I cleaned their computers and set up their wireless AP with full WEP and MAC filtering for free. Sure I got a few beers and a chicken dinner out of it but it's still a bit of a kick in the pants. I save them $200 and I get the luxury of watching the football game with them? How about they pay me $200 and get the luxury of watching the football game with me?
Ahhhhhh... to have a house, a big screen TV, and a well-stocked refrigerator. Then people would be jumping to fix _MY_ problems.
Yeah right...
Nude Pics (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Slave and Master (Score:2, Interesting)
Birthday Present for Girlfriend (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course the nut mailed me a check anyway.
I try to avoid bartering... (Score:2, Interesting)
There are some scary consequences for not keeping accurate, defensible paperwork on any barter transactions. Free trade is only free trade if the government gets its cut, and heavy fines and/or jail time just aren't worth the risks of swapping professional services/products casually. If you get caught without good documentation, it is likely you will involve yourself in a government sponsored colonoscopy going back several years.
I'm waiting for the cop's services (Score:3, Interesting)
He bought me a cold bottle of Chimay ale, which was nice, but I was hoping for something a little more cop-like out of him, like maybe harassing the CEO on the street in front of the office. They say "cops got the best stuff", too.
Another neighbor is an interior painter, and he's done some free painting for me, but I'd go to his house to drool over his daughter anyway, which is a tad twisted since she's 17 and I'm...older than that.
Re:Benefits. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is were it got good. I asked him what he would recommend, not becaus I didn't understand what a latte was but because the proprieter always knows what he does best. He suggested I try a Turbo Cola. I said, "huh?"
Here's ther recipie:
3-4 ice cubes of frozen, high quality coffee.
2 shots of espresso
Fill the rest with Coke.
This turned out to be my all time favorite coffee drink. The creamy head is equal or superior to Guiness, the flavor is perfect and I've never gotten a better rev.
The monetary value of this barter is nothing to get excited about, but the store went out of business a short time after this event and I know I'm one of only a select few that got a crack at one of these drinks. I make if for myself fairly often and know that this recipe is worth far more than the drink itself. If you've never tried a coffee-cola give this recipe a try. Every person who tries one of these and loves it just increases the value of that one, simple job I did.
TW
Re:Unwanted but favorable recommendations... (Score:4, Interesting)
There are some people I'll help out with computer issues without charging them; these are the friends that know what I do for a living, yet rarely ask me for a favor. The friends that just assume I'll fix things for free and ask for stuff all the time get the standard thirty-bucks-an-hour line.
Personally, I think I'm better off with friends that actually like me enough to not try taking advantage of me.
I'm also nominally more willing to help those learning Linux, partially because I know the system better, and also because it's one of the ways I can give back to the community.
Re:I'll take... (Score:5, Interesting)
My Dad commutes to work every day on the train. He's gotten to be pretty friendly with the conductors/engineers over the past couple of years. One of them mentioned his troubles setting up a wireless network in his home, and my Dad offered his services to work the kinks out for him. It was a frustrating day's work getting everything tweaked just so, but it turned out to be worth it - he hasn't had to pay for a train ticket in about 3 years now. As an added bonus, whenever there's a concert or a Red Sox game, the conductors leave one car empty for my Dad and the other 'regulars' so they don't have to ride home with a train full of drunken yahoos.
Re:A better choice... (Score:4, Interesting)
Geeks must like trucks. I saw a bumper sticker with that and the "replace you with a very small shell script" joke on the back window of a souped-up F-150. I've seen similar geekiness on other trucks.
It was very confusing to me - seeing a giant-ass jacked up rumbling truck with an NRA sticker and a peeing calvin on one side and "shell script" and "read your e-mail" stickers on the other.
The best trades (Score:3, Interesting)
4 fat Cohiba cigars as a tip.
Fixed 5 imacs in trade for getting to keep one of them.
$2000 to spend 8 hours removing klez from a network overnight.
Recently Knocked $500 off a dual Opteron server with 2 GB ram in exchange for the sun 250... with 2 GB of ram it replaced.
I get a lot of stuff via barter (Score:2, Interesting)
Host 1 web site = free tattoos over most of my body
Built+host 2 web sites + email = sex (well, she married me too)
Built+host 1 web site = free accountant
admin 1 box = free 1U+1Mbit connection (which I use to host the above mentioned barters)
tech support = free clothes from a cool store
If I could just work something out with my mortgage lender and my utilities I could quit my job!
Geek heaven (Score:5, Interesting)
So, after much hinting and many awkward silences, she blurted out that she'd do anything I wanted if I bailed her out. Surely at that moment I achieved a permanent place in the Geek Hall of Fame, perhaps in the Absurd Fantasies wing.
But it gets better. You see, I was very happy with my girlfriend at the time (whom I later married), and I didn't want to mess that up by sleeping with someone she saw every day and whom I didn't trust to keep quiet. So I turned her down.
For the sex, anyway. I had her take me out to dinner instead. The stats thing she needed took me 20 minutes to run.
I was walking on air for some time after that, just based on the principle of the thing.
Re:A better choice... (Score:5, Interesting)
Trucks now a days are very high tech. They almost all have GPS responders that reveal where they are, what speed they are doing etc. And truckers are lonely, so they often have internet connections for use while they are parked for the night.
I have found many truckers to be computer geeks at heart.
Law advice (Score:5, Interesting)
I was embarrassed about it, but I mentioned it to my although-I-didn't-know-it-wife-to-be, and felt that I had to plead guilty to the charge. She mentioned that her uncle was a lawyer in New Jersey, and that he was having trouble configuring his new Unix box (a Fortune computer, this was 1983.) A deal was quickly struck.
I went up there for the weekend, and got his machine configured, and he told me about this spectacular precedent called the Wenzel case in New Jersey -- where no matter what the evidence is, if the cop didn't actually see you being careless he couldn't charge you with that. He refused to represent me, but he counseled me with exactly what I had to say. Basically, although I was acting in my own defense, I couldn't testify for myself -- I would merely cite the case.
Well, traffic court in New Jersey was a long slow process, and I was the last one there when the cop finally deigned to appear. He gave his report, and I offered no explanation, but cited Wenzel, and the judge said "Get out of here." And so I did.
That barter probably saved me many thousands of dollars over the next few years.
thad
Re:taxes (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:A better choice... (Score:4, Interesting)
Marriage (Score:4, Interesting)
A nosy friend of my mother's fixed me up and introduction to a young lady. At the time I lived in Atlanta and she lived in Lafayette, Louisiana. We were both in school. We emailed each other and made a phone call or two for three months before she came to Atlanta to visit her mother.
Now I do Windows, but at heart I'm a Mac guy. As soon as I introduced myself to this lady, I determined that she was a Mac user. She told me that her mother was a self-employed person who ran her business out of her home on a Macintosh, and that her mother needed a great deal of computer help, which she wasn't really able to pay for.
(Lightbulb goes off).
We met. Five months later she bailed out of grad school and moved to Atlanta. We were inseparable. And I spent a lot of time, gratis, helping her mother tackle her Mac problems and get her business and office under control. I upgraded both of them to newer Macs, largely at my own expense.
When I asked the young lady to marry me, and she said "Yes," I went to her mother.
I said, "Linda, how would you like a lifetime of free technical support?"
(Wedding bells)
Anyone from Argentina on-line? (Score:1, Interesting)
fixed comp == fixed cat (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Chiropracters == Quacks (Score:4, Interesting)
I know that if I ever get similar problems I'll be back again, but touchwood that has never happened. Count me as one very satisfied customer.
A girlfriend! (Score:1, Interesting)
It wasn't bartering as such but, you know, two people sitting on a sofa, one laptop stubbornly refusing to submit to having Windows installed on it, idle time between reboots etc. etc.
The start of my business (Score:4, Interesting)
I soon had people asking if I could build computers for them.. or tell them what to buy.. or better yet, if they could just hand me the money and I'd do it all for them. I mostly do it for money these days, but I regularly get tips because customers are happy with my level of honesty. Most of my tips are cash (about 10% tip on a whole computer, which is pretty big.. especially considering most parts only have 13% markup!) but I am still tipped with a couple cases of beer now and then. I've had customers ask if they could set me up with their daughters, I can get into a number of local clubs for free with no line, a few local gyms, and I get discount pricing on pretty much everything I buy.
Computer skills can get you seriously networked with people. I think that's the most important part of all. My friends are always shocked at how many people I know. We'll be talking about, say... getting a car alarm installed on my friend's POS that's been stolen a million times. I know a guy who can hook us up on pricing. I know another guy who will install it for me for free. I know a woman at the insurance agency who will pull all the strings she can to see if the new alarm will lower the insurance rates. Knowing people in places will bail you out of a million and one situations.
Forget favours like beer. Networking with people is important, and computer skills can do that for you.
I'm now 20 and just finished my second year of university; I work fewer than 10 hours a week and make more money than the average bachelor degree graduate from my school. I usually don't brag, but I think that's a pretty good accomplishment.
Re:Slave and Master (Score:3, Interesting)
Nah, the reality is, most girls are pretty. It's just that the ones with intelligence don't work as hard to accentuate it as the "hotties," who simply have nothing better to do.
Seriously... The "hot" chick in sixth period is only hot because of the giant quantities of mascara and cover-up she puts on. Oh, she may be hot now... But in the morning, after six hours of "playtime," she might appear... different.
Don't discount the more "ordinary" looking girls so easily.
Re:Chiropracters == Quacks (Score:2, Interesting)
Since I was about 10 or basicaly as long as I could remember. I would have headaches maby 3-4 times a week. In, I think 9th grade, playing basket ball, I took a knee prety hard to one side of my back. No big at the time I got up and continued to play. But the next morning I thought I was going to die, trying to get out of bed.
My parents and I though I pulled somthing. A week later, still in lots of unsubsiding pain, I went to a doctor. X-Ray's hole nine, Doc. told me to see a Crackolgist. The Doctor Told Me they would be able to fix it.
In one visit (insurance covered) he fixed the back pain, in like 5 min i felt mutch better. He asked if I had anyother issues. My mother mentioned the headaches. Back on the table. With my feet haning off the edge, and my head stright down my heals wern't even. when i turned my head to one side (I can't remembver which) they evened out. One twisting of the neck, that hurt alot and ached a little for maby an hour. i didnt have annother headach for 3 months.
When they came back, I went and same thing was discovered. Then 6 maby 9 months went by, annother trip. After that I havent had the recuring headachs for more than a decade now.
I also have a herdatory predispostion for cracking joints (statisticaly proven to be harmless). I can crack my fingers(mutipal joints per) toes, ankles, wrists, knees, elbow, sholder and hip's on rare un-intentional ocations, even my kneck and back in sevral places (my situps can cound like popcorn). Cracking joints and what ciropractors do are very diffrent. It feels diffrent and has diffrent effects.
People who think what they do is useless, or trivial in any way, has never had it when they needed it, or was mis diagnosed and had it when they didn't need it.
Wine and a Gateway (Score:3, Interesting)
They gave me a nice bottle of wine and a $50 gift certificate to a wine shop.
Then they had a friend of theirs give me a $90/hr contract job configuring a couple of media center servers. That was an on-site job at a digital media company that I wrapped up in three hours. As I was finishing up that job, they picked me up for two days' worth of video production consulting, also at $90/hr.
All in all, 25 minutes of blowing away bogus browser extensions netted me about a grand and a half.
So always be nice to your neighbors!
Calculator program... will trade anything. (Score:1, Interesting)
Well we had a calc teacher who decided that since some kids were copying formulas into the program sections of their calculator, he would require everyone to clear their calculator's memory before the final exam. We were in the same class, my buddy and I, so we'd lose all our extra (and intra) curricular programs.
So we devised a program to fake the "Mem Clear" screen on the TI-82. (Not a hard feat, just had to make a couple of graphics with cursor on, cursor off, then call them on a timer). We told a couple of our close friends, but didn't really want word to get out.
But it did. I remember eating lunch downtown when one girl from class approached me on the sidewalk and said she heard I'd made such a program. She was at risk of failing the class, wanted to keep her cheat sheets, blah blah blah.
And then she said, "I will do anything for that program." I kind of brushed her off, b/c whatever I asked for I'd feel horrible about. Then she re-iterated, "I will do ANYTHING."
Little geek takes a big gulp, makes some karma considerations, and tells her, "no thanks." She was sorta slutty, so I doubt she had much to offer besides STDs.
Re:Unwanted but favorable recommendations... (Score:5, Interesting)
The fundamental problem with this analysis is the assumption that the worth of your time is a constant. For nearly everyone, it certainly is not.
I've seen plenty of people on Slashdot evaluate their time in terms of their hourly wage. This is completely bogus. If you work a 9-5, then the value of your time between the hours of 7 and 8 PM has absolutely nothing to do with your work wage. You aren't at work between the hours of 7 to 8 PM anyway, so it makes no sense to value your time based on that standard.
For some, their off-work time is worth less than on-work. For example, people who are paid double-time to work weekends might jump at the chance to give up a few hours lounging around on Sunday in return for a few hundred bucks.
On the other hand, you have people like me, whose off-work time is so valuable that I doubt there is a quantity you could pay me (ok, within reason) to get me to come to work on Saturday. I don't think I'd do it even for $1000 a day. Okay, maybe as a one-time deal, but not consistently.
Personally, I think I'm better off with friends that actually like me enough to not try taking advantage of me.
That's why I have very few "friends." People sometimes ask me if I'm lonely. I respond that I have just as many friends as they do, it's just that I don't refer to my casual acquaintances as "friends." The three or four close friends I do have, would probably give up limbs for me, and I'd do the same.
I realized long ago that the effort of maintaining the less serious casual acquaintances just wasn't worth it. Pick your real friends and then direct all your energy toward those people. Nobody else matters.
Re:Benefits. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Slave and Master (Score:1, Interesting)
>Nah, the reality is, most girls are pretty
That's debatable on what standard of beauty you're using, but the grand-parent is correct. Most pretty girls are dumb, simply because every guy in the world will do whatever they ask thus they never get the critical thinking or DIY skills that we consider "smart" or lead to being smart. Toss in a social life on a grand scale that leaves little time for reading and self-reflection and you've got your typical dumb girl. But she is smart in manipulating others and social skills, which is just as good unless she loses her looks or gets married.
For a chance at mating (which will not happen, she's going to date that asshole anyway) we'll do
1. her homework
2. clean her car
3. fix up her computer
4. give her a computer
5. help her move
6. fix her car
etc
DANGER! DANGER! (Score:2, Interesting)
Beware... sometimes there's a catch to this whole bartering thing.
On a semi-related note, I wholeheartedly recommend not knowing anything about Windows, so when people ask for help with their computers, you can simply smile and say "Sorry, I don't know anything about Windows, I only use unix systems." It works great for me.
Re:Benefits. (Score:3, Interesting)
Druggie parents: My anti-drug.
Who would admit it? (Score:0, Interesting)
Why obey stupid laws?
Lets look at the example above where you mow your uncle's lawn for a season, once a week without fail. Lets say its a big lawn (mine is 2 acres), and it costs $50/mow from a professional and so in gratitude, he's gonna fix up your old Z28.
That's probably $1000 of lawnmowing, and he does $2000 worth of work to your car. Now, in your ideal world, you enumerate what its worth, and you would owe the government $600 and your uncle would owe $300.
Now think about that for a second. If both of you just STFU, then you don't have to pay taxes, and honestly, the government isn't going to "help" you in any way because you paid those taxes.
Really, I'd question the sanity fo anybody who did that. I'd go so far as to call them a moron.
No offense.
Join a Barter Group (Score:4, Interesting)
I am able to trade out computer services for barter bucks which I can use to get food catering, so I don't have to spend time shopping/cooking.
The added bonus of joining a barter group is that people are way more willing to spend barter bucks than cash, so you can get value out of people who wouldn't otherwise pay you. It is also good for increasing business when you don't have a lot of it already.
Similarly... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Benefits. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Benefits. (Score:3, Interesting)
Cheers,
TW
Re:Lodging in a foreign country! (Score:3, Interesting)
4 pools, private beach, a manbinured jungle pathway, a staff of 14, and a four poster bed!
Man, life is a bitch sometimes.
Sounds illegal (Score:1, Interesting)
Cocaine (Score:3, Interesting)
One night after at a bar I randomly ran into this guy that some of my friends and I had met earlier at a basketball game. After the bar closed we proceeded back to his house to continue the party - it was at this point I noticed a computer and sat down to mess with it. Seeing this our host starts with a laundry list of problems his windows box was having. I told him that I would love to help but that i was a bit too drunk.
And then he brought out the coke...
As everyone else coninued drinking/screaming/watching porn in the background this guy would hold up a mirror in front of my face every few minutes when I was hyped/frustrated/too high/not high enough until I had finished.
All said I was probably paid about $100 for three or four hours of work. Sadly not the first or the last time I have accepted substance for service
In the words of Rick James: "Cocaine is a helluva drug"
Re:Dali Lama (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Think of it this way (Score:3, Interesting)
That shirt is a big fuck you to the world.
Perhaps only to that portion of the world that takes you seriously. Shirt combined with scowling hostility, perhaps, but shirt combined with smile and friendly demeanor can be easily seen as ironic.
Besides, those who know me will know it's meant to be humourous. And the strangers? Well without the shirt, how were they to know that I'm capable of fixing their computers? Maybe I should get one to drum up business. It's advertising.
And just to close on topic, one of the best barters I ever got for fixing a computer was an outstanding reference.
Re:anyone (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm reading such _absurd_ stuff like "woohoo, neat. I bartered several hours of work for a six-pack of beer." Or cookies. Or pizza. Or like "woohoo, neat. I worked for hours to repair/assemble/disinfect someone's computer, and they gave me their ancient 3.6 GB MFM HDD." Or their cute little ancient 2x CD-ROM drive. (Believe it or not, I've actually read exactly that kind of barter idiocy in a Slashdot post.)
Now I know that traditionally geeks have zero sense of economics, but ffs, this is already absurd. Someone please tell me it's a bad dream, and I'll wake up to a sane world sometime soon.
How poor _are_ you people? _Where_ are you repairing servers, that several hours of your time are worth a couple of cookies? Elbonia? (Nothing against the fine people of Elbonia [dilbert.com], of course.)
Look at the price of a sixpack of beer. Even at Indian tech support wages, that's peanuts. (Nothing against the fine Indian workers. Just using them as an example of underpaid labour.) You could get a second part-time job at tech support, and get money for more beer for less work than repairing the computer of every single retard you know... and all their friends, and their friends' friends' friends.
So let me tell you the _real_ deal you're getting. "Oooh, if you'll do unpaid work for me, I'll act as if I was your grateful friend."
There's a whole caste of parasites whose only skill is pretending to be your friend. But only as long as you work for them. Whether it's repairing their computer at home, or doing their work too at the office, or whatever other freeloading they can get off you.
And it's downright sad how many sad geeks think they're buying friendship that way. Not just sad because they have to _pay_ for even an illusion of having any friends. (Even if in work, it's still paying.) It's sad because they're not even getting any friends that way. All you're getting are some parasitic acquaintances who never see you as more than someone who'll fix their computer for free.
And the only difference between those who offer you cookies, and those who go "You get paid for this? All you did was press keys."... is merely that the first category are good at being parasites, while the second are lousy at it.
Here's a crazy idea: _Real_ friends are those you don't have to work for. People who, if you had to move to another country for the next 5 years and physically couldn't repair anything for them, would still want to keep in touch with you.
Whereas the neighbour who acts like the grateful puppy for fixing their computer, will forget that you ever existed, as soon as they can't get an advantage off you any more. That's not a friend.
Me? I'll be the asshole who won't fix their computer, nor their car, nor anything else. They can go pay to get it fixed, for all I care. Which, as a nice side effect, might do a lot more to teach them about clicking on crap.
Re:anyone (Score:3, Interesting)
Whoops, forgot to answer the question. I dated a stripper for about 6 weeks, met her in real life and started dating her before she told me. So I talked to her quite a bit and gleaned quite a bit of insight into their world. Once the other girls at the club found out I was on the inside (hehe, so to speak) I was 'safe' and they opened up to me also - they like to poke fun at each other so while mine was up on stage and couldn't do anything about it the others would climb all over me in a playful 'make your gf jealous' way. It was a lot of fun, I will admit that. Talking with the dancers is cool, sort of how surfing slashdot at work is cool - it isn't making anybody any money so the minute a money making opportunity comes up the 'fun chat' is over (but it is a cool diversion between money making opportunities.)
Broke up after about 6 weeks, she was on the pipe (crack) and I wasn't - last I heard she ended up in jail. Too bad, she fscked like a wild animal, probably the best I ever had. Made more money than I did too, a lot more.
Enjoy your time in the clubs - but see it for what it is - like a trip to a really high class (expensive) exotic zoo with a great drink selection, with a booming sound system and all the music you like. Oh, and most high end clubs have amazing food, I highly recommend the best steak in the house - those places take pride in their meat (no pun intended.)