9/13/10

A Genius Saved My Life

You know that song Last Night A DJ Saved My Life? Well Today A Genius Saved My Life!

I had a MAJOR FAIL with my beloved iPhone4 yesterday - the dag on screen just went totally black - or at least that is what it appeared to be doing. I could hear it ring, I could hear the text messages coming in after the Triathlon, I could hear the pings from FB updates...what I couldn't do was see a damn thing. Thus I couldn't answer the phone, I couldn't do NADA.

I called Ap.p.le support and we reset, we restored, we did a factory reset to default settings...NOTHING. Well, I could faintly see the icons but that just wasn't going to do. So the support person on the phone told me to take it over to the store and they would swap it out for a new piece of hardware. Cool.

Well, not so cool. I showed up for my appointment with my A.p.p.le Genius right on time and he gave me the side eye -albeit in a very nice way - like tsk, tsk, tsk. Looks like there was some "damage" to my phone that IS NOT covered by the warranty. He must have seen the despair that came over my face. He must have seen my shoulders drop and my knees almost buckle...for I KNEW what that meant - I was gonna have to buy a full priced replacement. Lawd Jesus.

iCant.

My Genius listened to my sob story and told me to wait a minute while he checks with his manager on what to do. I don't know if he really went to talk to his manager or not, but about 5 minutes later, he came back out, beckoned me over to the counter and said, "I'm going to take care of you...this time."

I almost burst into tears right there. I almost grabbed him to plant a big fat smooch on him that would have probably earned me a FireMarshall over the eyeglasses stare down. However, since those counters are about as tall as I am, I couldn't quite get at him.

As my Genius worked on my new piece of hardware and got me set up, I gushed. I couldn't thank him enough and asked if I could take him to lunch for his kindness. He said he couldn't do that, but offered to walk me to the front of the store. As we walked up front, he told me he wasn't trying to be rude with his no, but if he accepted then it might cause problems with his co-workers and that he really appreciated my offer.

I asked for his card and he gave me his vitals. They don't work on commission at the A/pp;le store but if you need something, need help with your M.a.C stuff then go see Johnny at the Columbia Mall location.

I wrote a thank you note to him so that he would know that I appreciated his patience, kindness & generosity. I hope he does some IT work on the side so I can throw some opportunities his way. I wish there were more people out there that practiced random acts of kindness. The world would be a better place. I plan on paying that forward.

Today a Genius Saved My Life...not with a song...but with a new phone.

Be blessed, Johnny, for you blessed me today. Thank You!