WOMEN AGES 50+ FOR NOVEMBER 2019

It’s amazing what life can put in front of you and the self-created challenges we can put before ourselves. I had a nice, relaxing vacation planned this past week. It turned out I ended up working almost most of my vacation, my phone died, I had absolutely no funds to do anything which included getting a new phone, and ended up getting some type of bug so ended up sleeping most of Thanksgiving away.

The phone I had was a Windows-based phone. Front time-to-time it would not start up in the morning and I would find it would reset that night when the updates would come through. I get up Monday morning and have no phone. Since my team cannot fully cover for me I had to log in to work. I ended up putting out fires most of the day.

With no phone and all of my contacts on the phone I had no way to contact friends and family (note – none of my information was in the cloud). But, phone normally resets overnight so I was not worried. On Tuesday morning my phone would not turn on so now I am two days in without a phone. I decided I would go online and purchase one, my service will deliver to me and set up with no additional cost. I go online, set up the order, and guess what?! Service will not process an order without me inputting a code which can only be texted to me. How is one to receive a text with no phone? I research and my service ended receiving texts online on 10/31/19 – my luck! Remember I have no disposable income and by placing online I would not have to make a payment until my next bill. I set up a chat with my provider, they insure me they can place the order, and lo and behold I have to pay the taxes on the phone. Which would not seem like much but with phones costing $700+ nowadays I could not do. Rep cannot place the order. An hour later I receive an email stating my order is completed. I get back on the chat with provider and was told delivery would occur the next day. I was very thankful. I asked for a confirmation email. An hour later I did not receive an email so I chat again with the provider. The chat had to be escalated and I was assisted yet again. Was assured they could place the order online just like I would be able to do with payment coming out of my next bill. After another hour and a half on the third chat I found out I would still have to pay the taxes which would not be doable until my next payday (12/06).

So what is a person to do? I have no way of contacting anyone because all of my contact information is in the darn phone that will not turn on (again, I did not save anything to the cloud). I am now very frustrated because I spent almost 4 hours on chats with the provider and nothing could be done to assist me. I basically hate the provider at this point.

But, did find sometimes miracles happen. I checked the mail on Tuesday and found a reimbursement check for some dental work I had done. This is too late in the day for me to cash and run out to purchase new phone.
Fast forward to Wednesday. I cash the check, wait for the phone store to open, and guess what? There isn’t a phone in stock (well, some, but nothing I wanted). It’s off to another store where I find they have stock. I finally get a phone to discover they cannot work with my dead phone so I still have no contacts. I pray that people just start calling me. Guess what?! No one contacts me at all. So now I feel unloved too and wonder do I really have any friends (yes, feeling very sorry about myself).

Wednesday night, well Thursday morning, I awaken at approximately 12:30 am coughing with body aches and feeling miserable. I attempt to go back to sleep but it wasn’t in the cards. I turn on the TV and simply veg out. At a reasonable hour I go downstairs and start packing up old phone and accessories. I decide to try to turn it on. It starts back up! WTH?! I am happy I can now get contacts and pictures and such transferred. I contact my friend, let him know I will not be coming to Fort Lauderdale because I am not feeling well. Get stuck attempting to pull contacts out of phone and finally go to bed around 1 in the afternoon or so. Slept on and off through until Friday.

Friday I awaken and research everything online. I was able to upload contacts and pictures to my MS account and push over to my Google account (took hours, but I did it and will able to do it again). So I now officially have two backup copies of everything in the cloud and new phone contains everything.

If you have gotten this far, G bless you. Sorry about the long rant. I am back on track now and feeling emotionally healthy again. Please, please I do not need tech advice. I have learned enough this week. It has been very frustrating but in the end everything worked out. But, this was a week from H and I hope not to see another one in the near future.