Good News, Bad News

You’re moving along, doing your thing and BAM! something unexpected happens….your computer crashes.  Everything you have is on your desktop or in a folder. But no issues, because you have a Mac…right?  Here’s what happened Thursday evening.  I’m on the phone with Jason, my branding guru. We are scheduling blog posts, twitter updates, etc. on HootSuite (don’t I sound like I know so much about technology?)

As I am waiting for HootSuite to open, I see the death spiral…the Mac pinwheel or in PC terms, the hourglass.  In this instance, it won’t stop.  I tried to ignore it but it’s like a shiny object in the corner of your eye.  The pinwheel is now the size of Rhode Island to me and getting bigger and bigger.  I tried everything that I could remember to do, but nothing would make it go away.  Finally, I turned off my computer and waited.  When I turned it back on, it was still there.  I tried that a number of times and finally decided it was time to call Apple.

In case you haven’t guessed or picked it up from my other posts, I might have a slight control issue…just slight so I told myself PLEASE be patient on the phone. They will do their best and will fix it.  After almost two hours and being asked, on numerous occasions, if I minded holding 2-4 minutes so the customer support person could talk to her Senior Manager, I wanted to ask why we couldn’t include that person on the call, but I was kind and she was patient with me.  She truly felt bad that she wasn’t able to make my Mac behave and finally told me I had to bring the computer in.  For those of you that don’t have a  Mac, there is no tower, it’s the monitor that you bring in but it’s big and it’s heavy.  This very patient woman scheduled a time for me to take the baby in, the very next day.

Now it’s Friday and I tried very hard to have positive vibes around me…starting with hoping to find a parking spot close to the Apple Store in Southlake, TX, in a great shopping area, two weeks before Christmas.  I was putting it out there and circled the area twice and OMG there was a spot right in front of the door.  Good sign.  I hoisted the monitor up and carried it in to the store.  A very nice sales associate took it from me and checked me in.  We headed over to the Genius Bar.  Not everyone gets to have the word ‘Genius’ on their name badge.

Tom Genius (as I’ll call him) was assigned my challenge. He was so nice and simply said, “Before we start, did you back your data up?”  I looked at him and simply responded, ” Please make believe I’m your mom, don’t make me cry and the answer to that is no. I thought Macs don’t have issues”.  To that he reminded me that any piece of technology has a 5 minute to 100 year life time or something like that.  I said I chose the latter and he said not so much…

Rather than quoting everything, here is the conversation..’TG’ is Tom Genius and ‘Me’ is me:

TG-Bad News-Not sure if we can recover your data but I will do my best

Me-Crap

TG-If we can’t, I know someone that does data recovery and depending on how valuable your data is, will determine if you want to pay to have it done but let’s see what I can do

Me-Crap

TG-Great news, I can recover it

Me-I love you

TG-Bad News-Your hard drive is gone

Me-Crap

TG-It’s going to be somewhere around $3-400

Me-Crap

TG-Good News-Oh wait you have an extended warranty

Me-Really?  I didn’t realize I purchased that

TG-Bad News-We have to get the hard drive in

Me-Crap

TG-Good News-We have it in stock

Me-You are awesome

TG-Bad News-It will take 3-5 to get it replaced

Me-Whatever you need to do (Bet you thought I was going to say Crap)

I did have to sit at the Genius Bar for over 2 hours waiting for all my data to be recovered. During that time Tom Genius did give me some “suggestions” about backing up, putting things in folders and cleaning up my desktop.  He totally saved my life that day as I was working on some projects that I did put into folders, on my desktop and thought they were safe there.

My computer was ready the very next morning and although Tom Genius was not assigned to me that morning, he did make sure I was good to go.  I have my new external passport that automatically backs up everything so I am a happy girl.   I received an email survey about my experience with the Genius Bar and there wasn’t scoring high enough.  I wasn’t sure if I could say “I love Tom Genius” but definitely eluded to it.  Tom if you are reading this…

So the good news definitely outweighed the bad.  I still have a few issues with a program or two that I need to work with but I am back in business and ready to attack my next challenge.

So what did I learn?

Here are the top 3 take aways:

1-BACK UP I don’t care if you do it every hour or day, just do it.  There is nothing worse than that sinking feeling in your stomach when you believe you lost everything.

2-When you are declining an extended warranty because you believe it is worthless, think again.  My hard drive was replaced at no cost.  That was priceless to me.

3-Build relationships wherever you go.  While sitting at the Genius Bar, I watched all the “Geniuses” and their different supporting ways.  Some were empathetic and spent a lot of time with the technologically challenged (Tom Genius),  and others were very quick to give you the bottom line (i.e. your phone is dead and you lost everything-never thinking about what that statement meant to that person). I build relationships wherever I go and it always has a great ending.