Today I drove ninety minutes each way to my nearest Apple store.
You see, last Friday morning, my Macbook Pro track pad decided that the CLICK FUNCTION wasn’t going to function any more.
And somehow, my remote wireless trackpad also decided that it was not going to CLICK FUNCTION function either.
Which rendered my MacBook rather useless, at that point in time.
Luckily for me, I had a busy day planned away from my MacBook, and was able to attend to emails and other incoming messages on my phone.
Which is not OK.
I mean, having to do a long session of email or LinkedIn on your phone screen is kind of like having to walk around your home all day looking through your loupes.
It’s migraine inducing… you really need a big screen for a big session on the computer.
Anyway, I was able to set up a mouse into the MacBook and re-engage with it over the weekend.
But as a long term solution, the mouse is not going to cut it for me.
So I booked a session at the Genius Bar
In my mind, I imagined I’d be turning up at the Apple Store, they’d take my MacBook for a couple of hours, and replace any expired parts that were causing the track pad to malfunction.
Sadly, my imagination was not my reality.
Firstly, the technician who attended to me told me that depending upon the part or parts that were needed, the Apple Store might need my MacBook for three days, as they would probably have to order the parts in.
The technician also told me that she felt that the issue with my trackpad was related to my user account, and maybe was due to some dust in the guts of the MacBook. And so she took the MacBook away to clean out the dust. [My MacBook had never had this operation performed upon it before].
And then the technician told me this:
She said:
“Let’s see how that goes.”
And she added:
“I’ve documented all that we’ve done today so that if the problem is still there, then we will know just what to do…”
And so off I went home….
And when I got home, guess what happened?
I fired up my MacBook, and within a couple of minutes, the trackpad CLICK FUNCTION had decided to stop functioning.
And so…
The only thing that I achieved today was to get the guts of my MacBook cleaned.
But apart from that, all that the Apple Store did for me was flick pass me a GIANT “stall”….
There was no solution for my problem.
All I received was a giant push out of the way.
When I was a young associate dentist…
When I worked as a recent graduate as a young associate dentist, I had an employer who I felt had a default function whenever he was unable to find a reason [or cause] for a patient who was experiencing intermittent dental pain that was far from specific.
Whenever my boss was unable to clearly diagnose the reason why there was someone in his dental chair, he would diagnose the patient as having “a sinus condition” and then he would prescribe the patient amoxycillin.
Now, I don’t know whether these patients were cured by this course of treatment, or they decided to go elsewhere because he didn’t appear to be able to nail the diagnosis?
The end result was that these patients presenting for this reason [indiscriminate pain] never seemed to return to our dental practice.
Maybe my old boss was a miracle worker?
I’m not convinced he was…
But as I drove home from the Apple Store, I kind of had a suspicious feeling that the result I envisaged was not going to eventuate.
And it didn’t.
And so now I have to return to that Apple Store, and surrender my MacBook for a few days.
I think those patients who saw my old boss and were told they had “sinus” probably also left his practice concerned that their reason for attending was still “up in the air”?
And I thought, surely there must be an Apple Store in our fair city where my MacBook’s dilemma might be solved rather than be deferred.
Just as I thought, all those years ago, that the diagnosis of “sinus” to describe non-specific dental pain, was really a flick pass from my old boss.
Patients don’t go to the dentist because they’ve got a couple of spare hours to kill.
Nobody does that.
Ever.
Patients go to the dentist because they have a dental problem that they don’t want to have, and they want that dentist to fix it.
And so dentists, doing nothing for your patients, is rarely the answer.
In the meantime, for me, I’m reacquainting myself with a mouse.
How interesting?!?!
And how frustrating!!!
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Dr. David Moffet BDS FPFA CSP is a certified CX Experience coach. David works with his wife Jayne Bandy to help SME businesses improve their Customer Service Systems to create memorable World Class experiences for their valued clients and customers. Click here to find out how David and Jayne can help your business