Wednesday, May 27, 2015

The Silent Service

I had to take my iPhone in to the Apple store today because there were issues with the Bluetooth for a while.   I checked in, waited in the designated spot for my Genius Bar technician and in short order a man came out and greeted me.  

We shook hands and then he pointed to his iPad, put it on the table and typed to me that he was here to help me and what was the issue I'd been experiencing?   He was deaf, I realized.  He asked if I could type in the iPad as well for our conversation.

What followed was one of the best experiences I've ever had in an Apple store.   The technician and I got along very well.   We both were quick typists and were able to get to the bottom of the problem in short order with him asking me questions and me answering via a text editor on his iPad.    He said they would need to replace the phone and he would be right back with a new one.   We erased the old one and I started the restore from iCloud with the new one.   We realized there was an iOS update that had to be installed before the phone install could continue.   We decided I would work on that while he went to his next customer and would check back in on me from time to time, which was fine by me since watching a progress bar progress from left to right is dull business indeed.

During the time we were working together, we talked about the Apple watch.   He picked on me because I was buying a white sports band, why not something with color?   I told him I was boring and we laughed.   We talked about battery life, how we both liked to exercise in the mornings and our concerns on how the battery drained with high-use.   We speculated on after market watch bands, and what the second generation of the Apple watch might be like.    And we did it all through a text editor on his iPad.

The thing is, I did type all that, but we looked at each other's faces and I just remember the conversations themselves, not that I was talking via a written medium.    I shook his hand as I left with my newly working replacement phone and told him thank you.  

If I have to go back for technical support, he'd be the person I'd ask for without a doubt.

The Big Boy Update:  My son told me, "I want to be inside the TV."   It must have been a good show he was watching earlier, I thought.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  "You be Anne and I'll be Susan."  My daughter has been asking me to role play with her lately.   Most commonly, she wants us to be her two teachers.   She'll ask me to be one of the two teachers, then say, "tap me on the shoulder."  When I do, she'll say, "you can get ready to go outside now," or something else that I'm guessing is related to what's happening in her classroom.   Sometimes we're also princesses and take turns being Elsa and Anna.

Fitness Update:  I went to the gym today and then ran two miles before dinner.   It was hot for the run.

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