Diary of a Freelancer - Always Have a Back-up

Hi there  and how was your weekend?

I'm back and finally able to get back to work after a bumpy week last week. With the holidays and everything else going on I was already running behind and in order to try to catch up I was working pretty late hours. So Thursday night at 1 a.m. my Wacom tablet, which I use to draw on the computer with, died. It had been blinking and turning on and off for a few hours but I just thought it was the cord connection. If I moved the cord a little the tablet would turn back on - so that seemed like the logical conclusion to me.

The next morning I get up and it's time to deal with this issue that I'm hoping will be fairly quick and painless... so first I call Best Buy and Apple to see if they sell just the cords in their store. Well no surprise here... they don't. So my next call is to Best Buy again to see if we purchased the two year protection plan on the tablet well it wasn't even offered to us because the warranty is covered through the manufacturer so I can't just go get it replaced that easy. So then I call Wacom explain the issue and since it's covered under the two year warranty still I have high hopes it'll all be ok. I'll have to go buy a new once since I can't wait weeks for the tablet to be replaced but then I'll have two so it'll all workout...But they think it's the cord as well and cords are not covered under warranty so I should just go to any electronics store and they have the cord since it's a standard cord blah blah blah...

Now I'm calling Best Buy for the third time and the one closest to my house does not have this so called standard cord. So I try Target.... they don't either... then I call the next closest Best Buy which is a half hour away and they have it! They tell me to order it online and just do store pick-up so it's fastest and should be perfectly simple. I Order it online. Half hour later I'm picking the cord up at Best Buy and the Geek Squad guy is promising me that it is in fact the correct cord and it'll be fine. Drive half hour home. Plug in cord. Why doesn't this cord fit!? O it's because they gave me the wrong cord!! Call Best Buy AGAIN, they assure me the right cord is set aside and I should come back and exchange them. Go there and am in the process of the exchange and I ask the sales girl if I can just take a look and make sure it's the right cord. And IT'S NOT!!! WTF!!! So back to the computer section where a very nice sales associate helps me find the right cord... surprise again. This cord is not standard - that Wacom jerk lied. In fact they barely make it anymore and I have to buy this crazy pack with like fifteen different cord hook-ups just to get one that matches. So back home, again... Plug in the cord. Yay! It Fits! But wait... wacom still doesn't turn on. WTF!!!!!!

So at this point I'm about to loose my mind or maybe I did... it's all a big angry blur. After all of that the cord wasn't the issue and I've wasted the entire day either on the phone or driving back and fourth to Best Buy. And all of those projects that I was so terribly behind on are nowhere closer to completion and I'm supposed to be leaving for the Poconos in an hour to spend the weekend with friends. So on the way to the Poconos I stop at Best Buy AGAIN and purchase a brand new Wacom, the updated version, and continue to the Poconos where any downtime or TV time we had I drew and worked on those projects. But the damn updated version sucks. I absolutely hate it. It has a tooth on the surface of the tablet so I can't make a smooth line with the pen and the icing on the cake the damn tablet continually freezes and I have to unplug it and then plug it back in to get it to work again. 

So now it's Monday afternoon. I've returned the new wacom, purchased an older version (which happens to be the same one I had to begin with), and am back in business!

But since my old wacom (the broken one) is still covered under warranty I now have to call Wacom again and get a new one from them too! I'm a little afraid based on Friday how this is going to go. And even if it all works out it'll most likely take a few weeks to get the new one anyway. But since this is the most important piece of equipment I use it can't hurt to have two.

Lesson learned though. If your major equipment breaks and you don't have a back-up you can't do your job and then you loose money and time! So ALWAYS HAVE A BACK-UP!

Happy Monday Sweets and here's to a better week!

xo