Soggy
Deerfield Beach, FL, December 2010
[Please click here for more wet-themed Thematic]
...You know that camcorder you advertise as waterproof? Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but it isn't.
This is a picture of our PlaySport ZX3. Actually, it's my wife's. I bought it for her birthday in September. The geek in me liked its feature set, and I figured the waterproof thing would come in handy some day. So when we hit the pool during our recent vacation, I brought it along and let it get wet.
The fogging screen was the first sign that something was amiss. I quietly took it away from the kids, opened it up and carefully removed the battery and memory card. Bad sign #2: Both of them were wet. Ruh-roh.
Later, when I thought everything was nice and dry, I put it back together and powered it on. Yet another bad move on my part, as it emitted a squeal that reminded me of an angry cat being tossed across a chalkboard (kids, that's what we used before SmartBoards. Ask your mom.) My wife called out from the other side of the house, fearful I had angered the natives.
The ZX3 was now truly and officially dead. On my watch. My wife was, understandably, not pleased.
Into a Ziploc bag with rice it went. Three days later, I successfully powered it back on and with the exception of some apparent water stains on the LCD screen, it's now working just fine. Thankfully, the content we originally captured on the card was undamaged. It won't be going anywhere near water ever again. My wife won't let me near anything of hers for far longer than that.
Your turn: Extricating oneself from the proverbial doghouse. Suggestions?
Update: I tweeted the URL for this blog entry to the folks at Kodak. Their Chief Listener tweeted me back, and asked for more details via e-mail. Long story short, the company has offered to replace the device at no charge. A few months back, I wrote an article for the Toronto Star about companies using social media to improve their customer service competencies - link here - so imagine how tickled I am to be on the receiving end of a clear SM-CS best practice. Major thanks to Kodak, a company that very much gets it.
