I have a love/hate relationship with my BlackBerry. When it’s working and all systems are go? Love it. No other device has single-handedly helped save my sanity and the planet all at the same time. The TeleNav feature (an add-on) provides me with GPS service and gets me from one design consultation to the next, efficiently and expertly. This means no more printing Google maps, no more near-wrecks due to consulting the Google maps (with TeleNav, I can listen to the nice computer lady give me directions through my ear bud), and not only do I save the paper previously involved in this process, I save a bit of oh-so-vital time now that I don’t have to hassle with said map printing.

But when the TeleNav service cuts out on my way to a new client’s house and takes the Web browser with it…and stays in Puerto Vallarta (or wherever it went on its little holiday) for 9 days, and mind you the email forwarding hasn’t worked in at least six months because I can’t figure out how to reset the password…well, I might as well be toting around one of those cell phones from the early 90s that was the size of your average knife block.

What does this have to do with design, you may wonder? I loathe the interface design of this device. It’s just not user-friendly. At least not for someone like me who was not born with the Third Eye. Based on previous experience with it, I know that any sort of troubleshooting/fix to my BlackBerry will require–at a minimum–three solid hours.

Who wants to give up three solid hours of their life working on a stupid handheld that should just WORK ALREADY?

If there’s an enterprising person out there who knows the 8800 like the back of their hand and wanted a little decorating advice in exchange for clearing up the mysteries of the BlackBerry for me in one hour or less, please contact me ASAP.

It would especially help if you also knew my username and password, since it has been a hundred years since I set this up (let’s be honest, more than likely it was my husband who did the honors) and I cannot remember any of that bunk…apparently they are not any of the 56 combinations I have already tried. Can’t my BlackBerry just have some kind of handy-dandy thumbprint recognition so we can just skip this whole username/password B.S. anyway?

Heavy sigh.