Monday, September 10, 2018

What's Next...?


And today yet one more twist gets added to my wonderful life … well, not exactly “added” – more along the lines of popping up again.  Let me explain…

I received a voice-mail from a buddy of mine who is currently traveling the country.  He was checking in to see if I had heard anything more about this possible employment opportunity that I am supposed to be getting a phone interview with sometime in the “next 3-5 business days” as of last Tuesday (today is a Monday, in case you were wondering…).  I’ve heard nothing, but that’s not what I’m on about today – that’s basically what I was expecting.  Nothing seems to ever work out for me as of late; but I digress…  No, the wrinkle that has popped up again is that I received this voice-mail without my phone ever ringing.  I was sitting here at my computer messing around with some video files just to basically kill time – killing time is a very common activity for me these days – when “Ping!” a notice pops up on my phone about a new voice-mail being received.  “That’s unusual,” I thought.  I don’t recall my phone ringing.  Sure enough, when I check the voice-mail, it’s the one I mentioned above.  Now why would my buddy just leave me a voice-mail instead of just calling me?  Seems strange…

Well, it should have seemed strange because my buddy actually did call.  My phone never rang although it did allow for him to leave a voice-mail.  Good thing it did because, if it hadn’t, I would never have discovered that my damn phone wasn’t working.  You see, the first thing I did after listening to the voice-mail was to call back my buddy.  All I heard during this attempt to actually make a phone call – with my phone, mind you – was silence.  No rings, no voices – pure silence.  I thought to myself, “Hmm, that’s weird.”  But, wouldn’t you know it, this same exact thing happened to me before.  A bit over a week ago, when I was attempting to have a phone call with my other buddy – the one that I am flying out to LAX so that he can ride back with me on ‘Route 66’ in a bit under a couple of weeks from now – I also received a voice-mail sans any incoming call notification.  It, of course, was from this other buddy who actually attempted to call me as well.  Venturing down that rabbit hole lead me to basically re-enable the “Voice-over-WiFi” feature of my phone and reboot it.  After doing this, I was then once again able to both make and receive phone calls.  I figured it must have just been weak cell-service that was causing the issue and, as long as my WiFi connection stayed strong, everything should be fine moving forward.  Nope.  Today proved that theory incorrect…

I made exactly zero changes to the “connections” settings of my phone – a very expensive Samsung Galaxy Note 8 that I purchased less than a year ago through Verizon Mobile.  I thought everything was cool.  I figured if anybody called me, my phone would ring – seems like perfectly sane expectations as it was working fine a week ago – however, at least once that I now know of, that did not happen.  What to do … what to do…?

Ends up, this time, all I needed to do in order to get my phone properly functioning as a phone again was to just reboot it.  A simple reboot after making no changes at all to the settings and I was able to make a return call to my buddy.  That’s not good.  That is, in fact, very bad.  What that means is that the issue is not with Verizon – it’s my goddamn phone!  I suppose there does exist the possibility that Verizon’s cell service in my area was having issues that they fixed during the time that I was rebooting my phone; however, that wouldn’t explain why the “Voice over WiFi” didn’t just kick-in.  My WiFi didn’t go down – I know this because I was at my computer the entire time.  Nope, my phone needed to be rebooted in order to be able to once again receive calls.  There’s something wrong with my phone and I have no idea what it is.

I also have no idea how long my phone has been in the state it was in.  According to the call log, the last call I received (or placed, for that matter) was mid-afternoon some three days ago.  That’s actually a bit reassuring as I doubt I would have received any important calls over the weekend – and, if I had, I’m pretty sure they would have left a voice-message.  So, now that I know my phone seems to randomly go into a state of not being a phone, I suppose I have to attempt to deal with that.  Many people never leave voice-messages these days.  That, unfortunately, is a necessity should my phone stop being a “phone” again … and, rest assured, it will.  I suppose the best I can do is basically reboot my phone after waking every morning.  That should, I’m hoping, make it operational for at least part of each day.  Once again, this world of ours has decided to throw a bit more difficulty into my life.  What’s gonna be next…?

bis später,

Coriolis

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