Spent 30 minutes trying to pair my earbuds before realizing they were in my jacket pocket the whole time

I sat on the bus last Thursday fiddling with my phone's bluetooth menu for what felt like forever, trying to get my new wireless earbuds to connect. After rebooting my phone and even resetting the earbuds twice, I finally checked my jacket pocket and found them still wrapped in the charging case from the store. Anyone else ever waste way too long on a gadget issue that was just user error? Haha, c'mon share your stories so I feel less dumb.

3 comments

3 Comments

grace4194d ago

My coworker Jen told me she once spent 45 minutes troubleshooting her laptop that wouldn't charge, only to realize she'd plugged the power cord into the USB port instead of the charging port. I laughed so hard when she told me that, but honestly I've done similar stuff way too many times. The worst for me was when I kept tapping my phone screen thinking it was frozen, but it was actually on the calculator app the whole time. We all have those moments where our brain just checks out for a bit, so don't worry about feeling dumb haha.

emery9657h ago

@grace419 oh man the calculator thing is too real. I once spent a solid ten minutes trying to tap a "stuck" YouTube video only to realize I had zoomed in on a screenshot of the video instead of actually playing it. Your coworker Jen's story is honestly pretty relatable, those brain check out moments happen to ALL of us. It helps to know I'm not the only one who does this stuff.

dylanbarnes4d ago

Hold on a minute. I have to push back here a little. Calling this "user error" kind of lets the companies off the hook for making things so complicated. Bluetooth pairing is still a mess, and the interface on your phone gave you no clue at all that the earbuds weren't nearby. It's not dumb to trust the screen versus digging through your pockets. Plus, every gadget has a different way to pair, and they change it every year. The real problem is bad design, not bad users. We shouldn't have to feel stupid for following what the software shows us.