I Need My Phone (And a Recommendation)

I was a late adopter of cell phone technology, but now I seem quite dependent on it. My old cell phone (an iPhone 5S) has glitched over the years. I had the battery replaced on one of my visits to East Lansing (where I visit a colleague at Michigan State University every year). It started glitching again a few weeks ago: it would not power up and refused to take a charge, but then start charging the next day. When I took it in to the Apple Store they told me they could not even open it up because it had a third party battery in it. Li-ion batteries can be dangerous, but I imagine the greater part of this policy is incentive for customers to buy expensive Apple parts. Anyway, I realized I had a great deal of my work and social life, and entertainment wrapped up in that little box. It could have been a wake up call to put down the technology, but instead I just bought a new phone. It is an iPhone SE, same size as the old one so it can fit in the same case I had, which is leather and quite nice.

I should say that I don't buy the phones with my own money. As a UBC faculty employee, I get a professional development allowance every year of $1,500.  It is surprising what you can and cannot do with this fund. You could pay for actual professional development: I could take a course on how to program in a modern computer language or on how to be a more motivational Director. However, most faculty members believe they can learn anything like that on their own. You can't take visitors out to lunch, although I believe that is often a legitimate expense and most faculty do not have alternate funds for this. You can't buy office furniture, although UBC will not necessarily provide upgrades even if your office chair is from 1950. Surprisingly, you can buy telecommunication equipment and pay for the monthly costs. Because I use the phone for work and my personal life, it seemed fair that I let UBC buy the phone for me and I pay the monthly bills.

These phones are all technically the property of UBC. They phrase it this way so you can't buy a phone with your PD money and then sell it to augment your salary. But the question is what you do with the old phone when you upgrade. UBC does not want a three year old glitching phone back. I decided to take it to a repair place and spend some of my own money ($44) having a new battery put in to see if that gave it new life. I took it to IRepair in International Village (second floor, you have to look around a bit to find it). It is just glass doors leading to a shallow entry way and a wall with a window cut out.

 

I rang the bell and a technically competent looking young man came out. We chatted, he took my phone and by the time I finished my lunch at the food court the battery was replaced. Seems to work fine so far. The repair guy said the old battery was the dodgiest one he had ever seen: it had no markings on it at all, not even fake ones. I will find a BC taxpayer to pass the old phone on to, or keep it as an extra to put a foreign sim card in when I travel.