Thursday, February 08, 2007

Technology and I are Fickle Friends




I have a love-hate relationship with gadgets, technology and machinery. When stuff works, it's like magic. I love it. I really appreciate it. When stuff doesn't work, I get huffy and impatient, and maybe mutter a few curses under my breath, or mutter a few curses out loud if there are no tender / young ears around.

If you've spent much time with me, you've probably seen my beloved Sidekick 3. It's a phone, camera, email getter, email sender, internet connector, music player and day planner all in one. I begged / bugged Chad to get this cute gadget as an anniversary gift for me this year, while expressly forbidding any jewelry purchases. (No blood diamonds for me, thanks all the same. I like some nice lab-grown sparkly rocks, but I digress.) My favorite television character, Veronica Mars, has the same device. I love my Sidekick 3... when it's working.

My Sidekick 3 won't charge, and thus won't function. I took it to the T-Mobile store where the friendly staff helped me order a new battery. That didn't fix it. The friendly T-Mobile staff then sold me a new charger cord. That didn't fix it. I took the memory card out of my pretty Sidekick 3 and stuck it in my old phone. The old phone works if I want to, you know, make or receive a phone call, but that's all the old phone does. No more emails, internet, camera or day planner for a while. I'm going to call T-Mobile tomorrow and see if they'll replace / repair the Sidekick 3. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

UPDATE: The very friendly customer service people at T-Mobile arranged for me to drop off the broken sidekick at a UPS Store, where UPS packed and shipped the sidekick back to T-Mobile at no cost to me. I had a new, fully-functional sidekick in about six days! I'm very happy with the customer service from T-Mobile.