Thanksgiving usually means food, family… and that one relative who becomes the unofficial IT help desk the moment they walk in the door.
If you’re the tech-savvy person, you know how it goes:
“While you’re here, can you look at my laptop?”
“Our Wi-Fi is slow—can you fix it?”
“We can’t get into our email; can you reset it?”
This year, instead of random “can you just…” requests, here are some smart Thanksgiving tech tips: what’s reasonable to ask your family “IT person” to do, what you should not put on them, and when it’s time to bring in a professional IT team for your business.
The Fun Stuff: Easy Tech Favors to Ask at Thanksgiving
If you’ve got a tech-savvy family member coming over, here are a few quick wins that make sense to ask for. These are light, low-risk, and can make life easier without turning Thanksgiving into a full-blown support ticket.
1. A Quick Wi-Fi Health Check
Slow Wi-Fi is the fastest way to ruin streaming, sports, and family photo-sharing. Your “IT person” can:
- Check where your router is placed (not hidden behind a TV or in a cabinet).
- Make sure you’re on a modern router and not a relic from 2012.
- Help you change the Wi-Fi password to something secure but shareable.
This is a perfect Thanksgiving ask: it benefits everyone and doesn’t usually take all day.
2. Basic Device Cleanup
If your laptop or phone feels painfully slow, a tech-savvy relative can sometimes:
- Remove junk programs you don’t use
- Help you run system updates
- Clear browser junk (old extensions, toolbars, etc.)
What they shouldn’t be doing at the dining room table is a full rebuild, data recovery, or deep malware hunt. Keep it simple.
3. Simple Security Settings
A few quick security upgrades are reasonable favors and go a long way:
- Turning on multi-factor authentication (MFA) for email or important logins
- Showing you how to recognize obvious phishing emails
- Making sure your main devices have antivirus/updates turned on
These are “teach you to fish” type tasks—perfect for a holiday visit.
What NOT to Ask Your “IT Person” to Do Over Thanksgiving
There’s a line between “Can you help me clean this up?” and “Can you quietly rebuild our entire company network while the turkey cooks?”
Here are a few things you shouldn’t put on a family member, even if they work in IT.
1. “Can You Just Fix Our Company’s IT While You’re Here?”
If someone in your family works in technology, it’s tempting to ask them to log into your business systems and:
- Reconfigure your firewall
- Migrate your email
- Fix your company server
- “Just take a quick look” at your entire network
Besides being a bad idea from a security and liability standpoint, it puts a huge amount of pressure on one person with no documentation, no backup, and no long-term plan.
If something breaks later, they’re now unofficially “on the hook” forever—and that’s not fair to them or safe for your business.
2. Anything That Involves Company-Wide Passwords or Admin Access
Sharing admin logins or company passwords with a relative—even a trusted one—creates risk:
- There’s no audit trail of who did what
- Your business might be violating its own security policies (or those of vendors/compliance standards)
- If that person leaves your company or your life, you’ve created another single point of failure
For business systems, access should be managed by a professional IT provider or an internal IT team with clear processes, documentation, and security controls.
3. Emergency “We Have No Backup” Situations
If your business is suddenly realizing on Thanksgiving that:
- No one knows whether backups are running
- Your only “backup” is a USB drive someone used months ago
- You have no idea how to recover if something fails
That’s not a “quick favor” problem, that’s a strategy problem. A family member can’t fix that between bites of pumpkin pie.
Why Relying on One “IT Hero” Is Risky for Your Business
The dynamic you see at Thanksgiving, one person handling all things tech, is exactly what happens in a lot of small and midsize businesses. There’s one:
- Overworked internal IT person
- Tech-savvy office manager
- Helpful vendor or cousin who “knows computers”
If they go on vacation, get sick, or decide to leave, you’re stuck. No documentation. No backup. No continuity.
That’s why at Stimulus Technologies, we talk a lot about removing single points of failure from your IT:
- A team instead of one person
- A documented environment instead of tribal knowledge
- 24/7 coverage instead of “when they’re available”
Thanksgiving is a great reminder: you don’t want your business relying on the same kind of informal, ad-hoc tech support you lean on at home.
Thanksgiving Tech Tip for Business Owners: Give Yourself Peace of Mind
While you’re enjoying the holiday (and maybe getting a little Wi-Fi help at home), take a minute to think about your business:
- If your main IT person suddenly couldn’t work next week, what would break?
- Do you know who to call at 3:00 AM if something goes down?
- Is your business relying on a “tech hero” instead of a documented, supported IT plan?
If those questions make you uncomfortable, that’s your signal: it might be time to bring in a managed IT partner.
At Stimulus Technologies, we help businesses:
- Build a clear, documented IT environment
- Get fast, friendly support from a team, not just one person
- Put proactive monitoring and security in place so you’re not always waiting for the next emergency
So yes—let your “IT person” in the family fix the home Wi-Fi and help Grandma with her iPad. But when it comes to your business, give yourself something to really be thankful for: reliable, professional IT support that’s there long after the leftovers are gone.
Wrap-Up + Next Step
Thanksgiving is the perfect time to:
- Show a little appreciation for the tech people in your life
- Make a few smart upgrades at home
- And take a hard look at whether your business is depending on the same “favor-based” IT model
🎥 Want a quick laugh and a few fun ideas?
Watch our Thanksgiving Tech Tip short with CEO Nathan Whittacre:
“What Your Tech Person Should Bring to Thanksgiving.”
If you’re ready to move your business from “we know a guy” IT to a structured, reliable IT partnership, we’d be happy to talk.
👉 Call us or schedule a discovery call to see if Stimulus Technologies is the right fit for your organization.
