Nothing tries my patience like tech problems. So when my MacBook Pro, where I do all my photography work, decided to hang then not reboot, it became a test. Was I going to let loose my temper and frustration? Or would I take that deep breath I always say I’m going to when circumstances conspire to tempt me into fire and fury?
I let myself have 90 seconds of fire and fury, pissed at the Mac for crashing, at myself for not doing backups every night (or at least after a big work session), and at the universe for bringing this load of crap into what had been a pretty lovely week.
Then I got down to work troubleshooting the problem. At the end of the day, I had to admit the issue was beyond my ken so I made an appointment with the Apple Store. Three whole days I had to wait. That’s some serious patience practice right there.
Long story short, the Apple Store diagnosed the problem as a failing SSD (hard drive). No worries, I thought, I have a new SSD in hand thanks to two-day shipping, and so I started on Friday afternoon to put it in. Of course it couldn’t be easy. The screw holding the SSD in was stripped, just enough I didn’t want to push it and make things worse. Deep breath. Patience. Another deep breath. Made an appointment at the Apple Store for the next day.
No joy at the store, but I was polite and patient, and asked if there was anything they could suggest. The tech referred me to a local repair place. I called right away: they were only open for another 2 hours, not sure they could do anything, but said to come on over. I did, and then waited patiently while they looked at the Mac in the back room. In two hours, I had my Mac back, working disk and ready to be restored from my backup.
Patience. It saved me more than once this last week.
Find patience in the breath of life.
Ryunosuke Satoro
Ouch! I felt like throwing it but then I’d only have damaged my little trailer so I just stomped around for a while 🙂
You did so much better than me — I threw my laptop off a second story porch. It felt great!