Upgrading Is Not Always The Answer

Some of you know that I am not the most technologically savvy person around. That’s why I have my “dream team” who takes care of that.  I just need to know what to do and when and I’m good.

For the past few weeks, my Mac has been showing me a yellow bar which tells me I needed to upgrade my Adobe…so that’s what I did, or attempted to do…  Unfortunately, I kept getting knocked off the upgrade. I tried multiple times and no luck.  When my entire computer changed from English to some other random language with no letters, only characters, I brought the baby into the Apple Store and visited the Genius Bar.

After a few short minutes of diagnostic testing, it was determined that I needed to upgrade to Snow Leopard and all would be good….but you have to order that…it’s not a download. So I ordered it and received it on Friday and immediately started to install the program.  An hour or so later, it was done and guess what?  The adobe upgrade message was gone…but so was my calculator and my scanner and all my text in my gmail was not glaringly bold!

I googled those issues and yes, they were common with Snow Leopard…in 2009!  You think they would have fixed those issues by 2013?  I decided to let my Mac sleep overnight and try it on Saturday.

So I placed a call into Apple support and had a great conversation and this tech told me to reinstall Snow Leopard in “safe mode”  really a PC term but for clarification, that’s what I’m using here.  However, he did tell me that as soon as it was done, to call in and they would walk me through the rest of the process.  Just in case I couldn’t reach that tech, he had all the notes so the next person could pick up where he left off….and I installed it again, and waited 57 minutes.  As soon as it was done, I called in and of course, he was not available.

The next tech person I got asked me what was now on my screen. I described it and she told me to install Snow Leopard, which I had just done, 57 minutes ago.  I told her that and she told me that according to what was on my screen, that was the next step.  I asked her again if I was supposed to install it again and told her to please read the notes and she said to install it yet again….3 minutes into that she said, “Oh wait, I’m reading the notes and you don’t have to do that but since you started, you need to let it finish”….seriously.  Ok 57 minutes later I called back in hoping I would get another tech….

Which I did.  Now he said, Snow Leopard is the lowest edition of OS so he thought it would be best to upgrade to Mountain Lion.  Remember, I just bought Snow Leopard the day before?  He understood and said if this was his computer, that’s what he would do.

Soooo guess what?  I downloaded Mountain Lion, at a fee of course, and 54 minutes later, it was done but now, not only was my calculator and scanner gone, so were 18 applications and my Quicken program.  I called back in and got another tech and he asked if this was about my iPhone?  Ummm I don’t have an iPhone and gave him my case number one more time.  He told me he had to get me to the right person so could I just tell him my story and he would pass it along? I immediately said NO! Just get me to the right person and I will tell them my story….again.

Now I’m passed to Jay, the second level supervisor and he asked me how I was doing?  I tried to be polite and apologized up front for being a bit short, but I had been on and off the phone with Apple for 5 hours and I was frustrated and exhausted.  He told me he was going to change my day.

What we had to do was upgrade, uninstall, install and more, everyone of the 18 applications and Quicken and after almost another 4 hours, it was all done.  He was very patient and understanding and would not hang up until everything was completed.  He gave me his direct line and as of today, Monday, I’m still in business!

Jay figured out pretty quickly how to work with a woman.  He had to build trust and a relationship before he could do the transaction.  He spoke in narratives and not bullet points.

When I received the survey about my experience on the support line, you can bet your bottom dollar, he got high scores and well deserved I might add!

Happy Selling!