There are lessons in life that everyone needs to learn, some bigger than others, but one lesson NOBODY wants to go through the hard way, is the one that involves the greatest fear of all millennials, FOBO (Fear of Being Offline).
Look, I’ve dropped my phone in water and done the rice thing and waited like 24 hours for it “get better”, but that was before the days of Snapchat and Facebook Live!
Now all I want to do is be online ALL the friggen time so when I woke up to find my iPhone had almost succumb to a knife injury right in the port from the previous night on the town, I went into panic mode.
I say “almost” because it was still alive, but with only 15% of it’s 6 inch life remaining and no power cable would work.
Before I get ahead of myself, lets rewind 12 hours…
I was sitting at a table at the Odyssey Gastropub in Bree Street with a bunch of really awesome people, when we started talking about McGyver ways to clean our iPhone ports.
Now I’ve tried fixing mine with earbuds and a plastic toothpick, but nothing ever seems to work, so I am sure it was already stuffed from the constant charging on the go and the port getting damaged and bent in my pocket.
My buddy, armed with a trusty leatherman, gave it a look and started removing most of my kitten’s fur from inside the port with the knife, and boom, it was clean.
Or so I thought… Fast forward 12 hours.
It was clear that my iPhone’s port was no more when I tapped the phone gently on my bedside table and little pieces of the connector on the inside started falling out.
By this time, my phone was on 3% because of course I needed to post an Instagram photo and check my Twitter notifications for the night. I even uploaded a Facet to my Sunset board.
It was now that the reality of the situation became clear and I started coming to terms with the fact that in a few short minutes, my phone would… It died while I was thinking that.
SH*T!!!
WHO CAN I CALL??? WHAT AM I GOING TO DO??? SH***********T!!!!!!
“CARLINN, GIVE ME YOUR PHONE, I NEED TO FIND SOMEONE TO HELP!!!”
After phoning around, chatting to some friends, I came across a tweet by @MrCPT about #FOBO, which made me kick myself…
Why the hell didn’t I think of iFix FIRST!!???
@thelawry Hey Mike, pop round to your nearest iFix store and we’ll get you online again! #FOBO
— iFix (@iFixSA) May 5, 2016
Awesome!! Just dropped off my broken phone at @iFixSA!! Can’t wait to get it back in my paws. #FOBO pic.twitter.com/d8EuOzS24B
— Mike Eloff (@thelawry) May 5, 2016
Just picked up my fixed iPhone from @iFixSA. It’s this type of SUPER fast turnaround that makes you awesome!! #FOBO pic.twitter.com/zcqDQ6d7cg
— Mike Eloff (@thelawry) May 5, 2016
The whole process of getting my phone back from the moment I left it with iFix was 83,5 minutes (Just short of an hour and a half), so it wasn’t quite a day that I had #FOBO for, but it felt like a week!
If you still don’t believe that #FOBO is real, watch this video! WARNING, slight anxiety will be felt while watching. Do not watch standing up!!