This is a love letter of a different sort...quite unlike the one I posted earlier to my high school sweetheart...this is a billet-doux to a corporation...and it's full of love just the same...
Despite what the Supreme Court has ruled, corporations are still businesses to me...and in my lifetime, only a handful of them has earned my deepest admiration...the latest addition to my list?... the Canon Factory Service Center...the reason?...they are making a free repair to my treasured camera...a repair I expected to pay for...my obscure way of acknowledging that I was responsible for the destruction...
It took me three weeks to learn this truth....initially, I thought my software was the cause...next I turned to investigating a problem with the CF card...this eventually led me to examine the camera...the thing I should have done first, but didn't even consider...akin to having a non-working computer and never checking whether the power cord is plugged in...
The moment I shed a flashlight on the CF clot, my heart sank...there it was...the right-most pin in the lower row...laying flat on its side on the bottom of the slot...crushed to death the first time I inserted the card...repairing it, my online research showed, would require a complete camera breakdown and rebuild at a cost in excess of $400...
So I did next what any reasonable person would do...I took two extra weeks to indulge in magical thinking...hey, maybe that pin with right itself...I know, maybe I could fix it...wait, maybe my husband can fix it...
In the end, I settled on the most prudent course of action...I sent it to Canon...within two hours of receipt, the factory service center sent me an email with the estimate...total repair cost: $0....wow, this magical thinking really works...
Seriously, making this repair under warranty is an unprecedented level of customer support...the likes of which I have received only from one other corporation, Apple Inc...
Many thanks, Canon...and to the person there...the individual who made this decision...you have my undying gratitude...may your kindness return to you a thousand-fold...
Photographer and model, Passage de l'Ancre off the Rue Saint-Martin, 75003 Paris, France...