what happens when technology fails

I don’t cry very often. I can count the times I’ve cried so far this year on one hand – in March when my brother told me he had to give his dog away, in June as the credits rolled on the Sex & the City movie (who am I kidding? I cried through the entire movie) and yesterday when my email wouldn’t work. Yes, I cried like a baby when I could neither send or receive email on my computer.

I’m a little bit ashamed, not so much by the tears, but because of my rabid dependence on the internet. I was frozen, paralyzed by my inability to email. It was suggested to me that I ‘use the time to get some writing done’ which sounds romantic and all, but when I’m done writing, my email will still be down.

Ahhh, and we’re back to the freelancer’s dilemma. I can’t call IT and tell them to deal with this while I work. So I sat on the phone with some young, and fairly rude, guys from Bluehost for over an hour. They told me that they had done all that they could, that no one on their team ‘knew Macs’ and that this was obviously a Mac problem, not a server problem. Really? Because when I signed up for Bluehost, it didn’t say ‘We do not support or service Mac users.” That’s when I started to cry: my life had ended and my precious work day was slipping away.

And then I remembered 1-800-275-2273, otherwise known as Apple Care, otherwise known as manna from heaven. I talked to Stefanie, and she was so nice to me, sincerely kind – even though I was crying and lunatical. She walked me through everything – even through checking my mail via the Bluehost webmail page to make sure it wasn’t a server issue – and let me assure you that she did this even though she doesn’t ‘know Bluehost’. My ports had ‘reset’ themselves to the wrong numbers overnight – something that I find rather creepy and rude. But, now I know where the ports are and I know the numbers they like – I even wrote it all down so I wouldn’t have to go through this next time.

I lost two hours yesterday, and it wasn’t completely world-ending. I’m not thrilled with Bluehost (usually their customer service is so good and so not 16 year-old, smart-ass & boy-like). I am thrilled with Apple and have been since the day I walked into the store to by my Macbook (note: I haven’t purchased a new iPhone or engaged MobileMe). And a big THANKS to my techie angel, Stefanie.