On Tuesday I wrote about my love/hate relationship with smart phones. I was in the dread phase of the hate end of the relationship that morning because we had an appointment to get new cell phones on Wednesday. Today is Friday morning and Randy and I are both chock full of relief. The whole experience wasn’t nearly as bad as we steeled ourselves for.
Our cell phone carrier is Xfinity. Since we switched to them after Hurricane Ian, I haven’t had good luck with their customer service. But there are trade-offs in life and their cell service is better than AT&T down here in Florida. When we needed new phones I knew we’d have to actually go to the store in Port Charlotte. I’m glad I also knew that walking into the store without an appointment was a full day of frustration. The store is always packed with people. The first appointment I could get was a week away.
When we arrived, there were no empty parking slots. Randy dropped me off and stalked cars leaving to get a space. I was greeted at the door by a fellow with an iPad who quickly checked me in. I waited less than 5 minutes before another fellow called my name and invited me to his workstation. We explained we needed new phones and the concerns and considerations we had. Ron listened attentively, asked pertinent and intelligent questions, and within 15 minutes had solved our problems and completed the purchase transactions. I was beyond impressed. But the best was yet to come.
Ron passed us to his colleague, Jay, whose specialty was phone set-up and transfer. We were especially apprehensive because Randy switched from an iPhone (which he’d been using for about 12 years) to an Android (because I have always had one and was fairly competent with it, and couldn’t help Randy much with his iPhone issues). But Jay was also extremely competent and friendly. Within another 20 minutes he made our new phones’ home screens and apps look and act just like the phones we were used to. It was, and I don’t say this hyperbolically, pretty miraculous. Technology has advanced leaps and bounds in the 8 years since we last got new phones.
Randy and I left the Xfinity store smiling and amazed. It took us only about 24 hours to get to the point of not struggling with phone change issues. Randy, to my surprise, adapted very well. He had some questions, I needed to show him a few things, but he did it all with patience, good humor, and an uncharacteristic lack of frustration. I was proud of him.
I’ve had a bit of time to play with my new phone and the camera has this fun feature they call Snapchat lenses. New to me, this is the one and only time I’ll use Snapchat lenses and share it with you. Now if I can learn to get AI to smooth out that turkey neck, I’ll be all set. But I think my favorite feature on the new phone is that the camera will take a picture with a 3 second timer when you simply say “Smile!” or “Cheese!” Man, that’s going to make the few selfies we take so much easier!
I’m done thinking about how I feel about my phone, and am simply going to make peace with it as the tool for modern living that it is.
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