Tom’s Tuesday Tech Tip: Yes It’s a Bad Connection, My Cell Phone’s in the Toilet! (Or Worse)

Last week I talked about what to do when you or someone not close to you anymore, spills a drink onto your laptop. This week I’ll discuss something that’s even more common – a wet cell phone. We’ve all seen or heard legal nurse consultants on their cell phones in the restroom, working by the pool, in the rain or snow or just being careless. Eventually, during your legal nurse consulting career, you’re going to do one of three things (four if you count throwing it at a difficult attorney-client) to your cell phone: drop it and break it, lose it or drop it into something very wet and bad for it.

Just like a spill onto a laptop, there are varying degrees of nastiness that can happen with a wet cell phone. It all depends on what we’ve dropped our phone into. A simple spill or dunking in water or other plain unsweetened liquid may not be so disastrous. Simply pull the battery out as quickly as possible. Don’t stop to say goodbye to that attorney-client if you’re on the phone when you step into the deep pool of water. You want to avoid shorting out any electronics. Keep the back off the phone, pull out the SIM card if you can (slide the holder back then lift out the card), shake the water out of the phone and disassemble it as much as you can (usually it’s not much). If it’s an iPhone (I don’t know why any Certified Legal Nurse Consultant would want one of these), you should try and open it up. You can use any small plastic wedge along the seam to do this – I recommend using plastic and not something metal. What’s the right piece of plastic? Our contract techie used a guitar pick on his – but he said he was just taking it apart to see what was inside, not because he dropped it in the loo (yeah, sure).

Next, set the pieces in a warm dry place. Avoid direct sunlight as you want to keep condensation from forming on the unseen parts. Let it sit for a day or so and then (here’s the fun part) bury the pieces in a large bowl of dry, uncooked rice (white or brown, long-grain or short). Yes, I did say dry, uncooked rice (Note to self: Cooked rice did not work). Let it sit buried for at least two days, three if you can. While it’s drying out, dry yourself out from your cell phone addiction. Let people know you’ll be off the grid for a couple of days. You can even tell them “I’m drying out” to see what reaction you get. After the third day, pull the phone out, wipe and blow out (mouth or canned air) any dust or other residue from the rice, reassemble it, put in the battery and let there be talk, email, apps, music and all the other stuff that your phone does for you (if the CLNC^® gods and goddesses are smiling at you). If it doesn’t fire up – take it back to your phone shop and tell them, “It just stopped working.” They’ll know what really happened.

If you happened to drop your phone into your margarita during the party your favorite attorney-client threw to celebrate winning that big medical malpractice case, or if your two-year-old slam dunked it into the toilet with her toys or if you just spilled your half-caf, double-shot, triple-caramel-whipped latte into it, we’re back to square one. Again, get off the phone, open it up and shake it out. Get out that can of circuit board cleaner you bought at RadioShack^® and wash out the sugar, sweeteners, cream and or saltwater (if you were deep-sea fishing). Wash it out with the circuit board cleaner. It’s already wet and now you’ve got to get out the gunk. But don’t dip it or soak it, that’s a recipe for further disaster. After you’ve rinsed it with the cleaner, follow the steps above to dry it out and fire it overhand into the rice bowl! With any luck, it’ll work when it comes out and you can get back into the swing of your legal nurse consulting business without too many days off the grid.

I’m hoping that all Certified Legal Nurse Consultants never have to dry out or dry out their phones or laptops. But, if you ever do spill your drink – at least we now know how to recover a phone or laptop. If you drop your attorney-client into the pool, recovering the business might be more difficult.

Keep on techin’,

Tom