Ironically, many of the shops around here charge $65/hour, or more like $110/hour if they need the skills of a network engineer. This is pretty much the going rate here in Albuq., NM...and consistent with what dif shops around town all charge.
All said, if I were fixing something, it would depend. If my 79 year old father who's retired and living largely on social security and pension fund (yes he did set money aside, but doesn't want to dip into it, to make sure mom would be covered if/when something should happen to him) were able to come over (lives 2,300 miles away however), I wouldn't charge him. It wouldn't seem cosher
Also, and not uncommonly, the clock starts ticking when they leave the driveway, not when they arrive. Other areas/local ecconomies, the rates might very some...
They did have probs with non-payment however. They built several DEC Alpha servers for the university hospital. They were like $200,000 a piece. The university bawlked at the 50% down on the purchase, so they waived it. As Fred said "for our good customers, we'll bend over backwards; but if someone wants to play hardball with us, we can do the same".
Well Carol was telling me how they got these servers, it's now 1 year latter, and they haven't seen any payment whatsoever. They call around, and keep getting sent to another department as everyone keeps claiming it's not their responsibility to deal with that, "contact that department instead". After a long beuracratic run around, she was sorta at the end of her rope and didn't know what to do, other then to say the university will never be allowed to buy anything on credit, ever again.
I ended up telling her that if we were so tardy in paying our tuition bill, they'd take it out to a collections agency. She should do the same. If she does, and the bill collectors get after them, they'll know what it's about; because if the role was reversed and they were owed money, they'd do the same exact thing themselves...