Munich: Without My Laptop

Reading Time: 4 minutes

 

I came to Munich to interview, network and job hunt. I had a brilliant plan to meet with as many of the Munich women from the Global Digital Women network as possible, all documented in an impressive spreadsheet.

I was also going to write, a lot. And keep up with the Gloss Over podcast recordings remotely.

With some of the free time, I was also planning to do some digital maintenance: get thousands of photos off my less than 2 years old MacBook Air and set up a solid cloud back up procedure.  Because I knew I needed to do all of that.

Great plans…

On a Tuesday afternoon, couple Tuesdays ago, after meeting with one of the ladies from the network for lunch, I headed back to my Munich pied-à-terre and turned on my beloved machine. Except it didn’t boot up.  Instead, I got the file folder with a question mark.  This can’t be good.

I spent the rest of my day googling all the things from my iPhone, translating German websites with my number one app these days: Google Translate, then walking to a couple of places I deciphered might be able to help me (isn’t there a Best Buy equivalent here?) and eventually talking to *at least* four *mostly* helpful guys.

The message was clear: it was time to visit the Apple Store, on Rosenstraße, at Marienplatz, in Munich’s City Center.  Really, the last resort…

In the last 10 days, I’ve been there 5 times…

1 – For the initial investigation, where I found out it would be a week + to schedule an appointment, or I could come first thing in the AM and hope for a same day appointment;

2 – The next morning, waiting in line behind 22 people right before the store opening @ 9h00;

3 – That same afternoon at 14h45 for my 15h00 appointment where Louis was really a delightful help and gave me hope even as he told me it would be a week before my turn would come;

4 – 8 days later, when I didn’t hear back within the initially committed week, to get the 411 on the status of my repair (I was told it would be another 2 or 3 days);

5 – Yesterday, after a nice lady called me to tell me my machine was ready, but given our language difference, couldn’t really tell me what state it was in.  Incidentally, it was the day of the launch of the new iPhone XS.  Shoot me, but shout out to my American girl in Munich Erica Gingerich for riding along with me.

—

I spent 3 hours there last night.  My MacBook Air’s logic board had been replaced, but it wouldn’t boot up from its original hard drive.

I had a decision to make: take a new hard drive and start my digital intellectual property from scratch or be computer-less for another undetermined period of time until I could find a way to get to my data (which of course wasn’t backed up).

The only good news here is that 2 years ago, when I decided to buy the then top of the line MacBook Air, I had gone all in and splurged on Apple Care.  Why not?  Now, Alleluia.  Everything so far has been covered.

Net-net, the first Genius (and that’s what they really are) I spoke to last night came up with an idea, and I paraphrase: “Maybe we can boot the machine up from an external hard drive so you can make do until you can get your data…”

Yep, let’s try that.

Handing my case off to a beautiful young Bavarian woman, Julia took it to the house and I left the Apple Store 80€ poorer (a bargain really), with a bootleg way to get back to typing on mine truly.  At least, I could do me again.

—

 

This story isn’t over: there is a bad hard drive in this beast.  With everything I have created for the last 2 years on it.  Actually, more importantly, with everything I have created since the beginning of my sabbatical – the most creative period in. my. entire. life. period;  all of Collective Thoughts, my young consult-agency; and the fiction book I started writing in April…  FUCK.

And most likely not enough time left in my stay in Germany to start the data recovery process here.  Never mind the language difference.

—

I’ve gone through the emotions and the motions.

At first, frustration and disappointment in myself.  I know better.  Shit, this is in essence what I do for work.  I would NEVER ever let a client’s work go single-threaded.  Ever.  I don’t care how much it costs, how hard it is, how long it adds to the schedule: it’s a straight no. fucking. brainer.

Yet, when it came to my own shit, I didn’t follow through.  I knew I needed to do it, but I delayed.  Why?  What’s that about?  In a time in my life where I have been taking care of so many self-care things, why did I leave this one loose end unattended?  I might know the answer: system failure.  Anyone else?  I can be and do sooooo much better.

I also initially felt desperation and loss.  I would potentially have to start everything over.  Recreate everything.  Such a waste of…  time, productivity, energy, everything.

Still, the moment it happened, part of me immediately felt like I couldn’t look back.  I couldn’t start playing the should-a, could-a, would-a game.  I witnessed myself practicing detachment.  Detachment from outcome.  Detachment from past.  Almost considering an opportunity to start a-new.

I have remained hopeful.  Maybe I’ll eventually get my data back, in an expensive learning lesson.  Maybe I won’t.  In the end, it is what it is.  Either way, I am forced to really learn the self-care lesson.  I am still on this journey.  Maybe that’s exactly what I came here for.