Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Genius Bar. What an appropriate name.

So approximately two hours after I posted my blog last night, I was trying to get my music synced to my iPhone. I was at close to max storage on my iPhone so I had been trying to delete stuff to make space for my new Taylor Swift album (because let's face it, that is all I will be listening to for several days). I plugged my iPhone into the USB port on my Mac and BOOM! Total blackness. The computer completely shut off and would not turn back on. The power cord would not even light up.

Cue utter panic. It's silly, I know, but all I could think about was how I need this for school and that I had no money for repairs or replacement. And really, I've just been so at my max lately that it felt like one more thing going wrong was just more than I could deal with.

Of course all this happened after customer service hours closed, so there was literally nothing I could do until this morning. Luckily my roommate was here to tell me to basically CALM THE HECK DOWN and that it probably wasn't as bad as I thought. But I was freaked at the idea of having no money for computer repairs let alone a new computer, and since this is my first Mac and I bought it in a rush off the Apple website, I couldn't for the life of me remember how Apple warranties worked. All I knew is that I hadn't bought one.

I found the customer service number and their hours and found the nearest Apple store (because thankfully I live near an Apple store now) and texted a few friends to ask them to pray, too, and laid there just praying and waiting to fall asleep. That came around 1:30.

I got up and got ready at 7:00. Right on the dot at 8:00, I called customer service and that guy gave me some serious peace of mind because he told me that since I just got this in March, I was still under Apple's automatic one-year warranty that covers absolutely everything, so even if I needed a whole new computer, it wouldn't cost me a dime. HUGE sigh of relief. He also told me that people generally make appointments at Apple stores, but if I walk in first thing the wait probably wouldn't be too bad.

I got to the Apple store just before the doors opened at 9:00, and by the size of the crowd that was outside the doors waiting for the opening, you'd think it was Black Friday or something. Geez. Well, I got to the Genius Bar (appropriate name) upstairs and a guy checked me in and said the first appointment they had open was 9:45. Sure, I was willing to be late to class to get this figured out. And 45 minutes in a store that packed seemed like a good deal to me. So I sat down in front of the Genius Bar and waited.

At about 9:40, a guy was helping a lady next to me, but started talking to me and basically started helping us at the same time. She was working on something and so he asked me, "So your computer won't turn on at all? And the power cord won't light up?" I said that's correct, and he pressed a few buttons and then said, "I just need to do a SMC reset, which is a system reset." He took my computer off to a back room, and brought it back like five minutes later (if that) and voila! It was back up and running! He explained that there was a small power surge in my USB port when I plugged my phone in and so it shut the whole thing down. Go figure.

Frankly, I didn't care a bit about the explanation because I was just so freaking happy my computer was back to normal. I felt pretty darn giddy. Like, I was so happy I kind of wanted to reach across the Genius Bar and plant a kiss on Sean's scruffy cheek.

I didn't, I do have some standards. ;)

But I wanted to.

Instead, I settled for telling every Apple store employee I saw that they just made my entire day. That seemed like a way less creepy option.

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