Miss Information has a difficult break up.
Miss Information has had the same cell phone company for a really long time. The salesperson who set up her account initially was a Brachiosaurus.
Anyway, Miss Information is tired of people mocking her antique phone. Also, she would like data. So, she begins researching the thorny problem. She studies and researches and reads and thinks and asks everyone she knows, then she does some more research. She discovers this: all cell phone plans are basically the same. Some have a lower monthly fee but a higher phone charge. Some have this much data and this many minutes. Others have these minutes and that much data. Some charge this much for going over and some charge that much. When you add up the various details, it comes out to exactly the same price per month--give or take some loose change. Miss Information thinks for a couple more weeks and decides to go with a place that will give her a cool phone and also a whack of bonus grocery points.
The actual getting of the new phone is pretty simple. She tells the salesguy what she wants (she's done enough research to be the salesperson at this point); he very helpfully gets it for her and sets up the transfer of her new number. It takes about 10 minutes.
The guy assures her that she can make calls right away but it might take a few hours for the new phone to get calls....something about getting released from the old contract.
Miss Information waits 24 hours and still can't get calls. She phones the new people. It's all good on their end. The extremely nice call centre person says that the old guys haven't released her number and she transfers Miss Information to them.
Miss Information tells that nice call centre person that she's got a contract with someone else and she needs her number. He proceeds to offer her awesome stuff to stay (basically, the exact same deal as every other cell company). Miss Information lets him down gently. They've grown apart. She's not the same person any more and she's found someone new. They can still be friends. It's not them, it's her.
Call centre guy thinks she's making a mistake and begs her to stay. She asks for the release of her phone number. He says her phone number is not portable. (This was true when she first got the phone but about a decade ago all phone numbers became portable.) She questions him.
He tells her that there's a little radio box he needs to click to make her phone number portable but he's not going to do it until she's sure it over between them. Now Miss Information threatens a restraining order. He clicks the button.
She needs to decompress with coffee. On her way, she gets an actual text! Her phone has been activated. It's going to be the start of a beautiful friendship.
Miss Information is tired of the summer drama
So, the day after "unbelievable" woman, a coworker came to speak with Miss Information. She looked stressed.
"That customer can't log into his Facebook. He's very upset. He's sent an email to them asking them to sort it out. Is there anything we can do?"
Miss Information thinks not but asks the customer what kind of an error message he's getting. He offers to show her. While they are at the computer, he goes into detail. His account works from his phone. His account works from his friend's laptop. His account does not work from the library or from the nearby hotel.
"What am I going to do?" the man asks. "It's a tragedy!"
The FB error message is odd considering that the man can access his account on some devices. Still, it's a FB problem. There is nothing Miss Information can do about it.
"Can't someone fix it? It's a tragedy!"
Miss Information assures the man that the people at FB are on the case and will be in touch with him.
"But...but...but...it's a tragedy! What am I going to do?"
Ok, pal, Miss Information has had it with you. Syria is a tragedy. What you have here is a completely minor inconvenience. There are subtleties here that you are failing to grasp.
When does summer end?
The woman is right. It is unbelievable.
Miss Information is back from a couple of weeks off and she's fielding a question about eBooks. The library only has an eBook copy of the item the woman wants. This is usually the point where a patron gets snippy about the library forgetting its roots and ignoring the old people who don't like technology. This woman is not one of those. She's cool with eBooks, if only she knew how to use her Android device to read eBooks...
Not a problem. Miss Information is here! She generally doesn't like to get into complicated technology at the desk but she's got vacation afterglow. Anything is possible!
The woman needs the eBook app but when she tries to access Google Play, she gets an error message.
"It's asking for a password! It never asks for a password! What do I do?"
Miss Information suggests the woman try typing in her password.
"No! It never asks for a password! Why is it asking for a password? This is unbelievable!"
Miss Information watches the woman fumble around for a while before suggesting again that the woman enter her password.
The woman doesn't know her password. She downloads apps all the time and never needs a password!
Um, ok but this time it wants a password. Miss Information is getting tired of the drama and asks if perhaps the woman has the password written down somewhere? At her home, far away from the library, perhaps?
"No. I don't know the password! Why is it asking? It doesn't ever ask! This is unbelievable!"
Miss Information convinces the woman that she should probably reset her password. She talks her through the first couple of steps, then excuses herself to help another patron.
When she returns...
"This is unbelievable! It's just going around in circles! Why is this happening?"
Miss Information watches the woman more closely. She gets to a point where she has the option to press continue. Instead she chooses the "reset password" button, again. The woman is right--she does keep going in circles but Google is not the problem here.
When that crisis is solved, the app is successfully downloaded. Yee haw. The woman is prompted to create an Overdrive account.
"Ok," Miss Information says. "All you have to do is put in your email address and a password."
"But wait," the woman says. "It says I can log in with Facebook. I want to use Facebook."
Miss Information doesn't have any experience with the Facebook option but if it will make the woman happy (and leave), then she'll give it a try. The woman clicks on the Facebook link.
It asks her to log in to her account.
"This is unbelievable! It wants me to log in! I can't log in!"
"Why?"
"I don't know my password!"
Miss Information suggests that in that case it might be better to simply create an Overdrive account.
"It says I can use Facebook! I want to use Facebook!"
Now Miss Information's desk time is up and her replacement has arrived. The woman decides that it is time to leave herself since her coffee break was technically over about 30 minutes ago. She does promise to come back, though.
Can't wait.
