John was late to pick his daughter from school. He grabbed his bag and his cell phone and left the office running with an unfinished coffee. He still had to stop by the dry cleaning on the way. The streets were busy with people and the traffic was terrible. He was able to get a parking spot close enough so it would not make him even more late. While increasing the pace mazing between the passing strangers, he briefly checked his messages on his cellphone. He had to charge it soon, the battery was dying. After picking the suits, a couple of jackets and half a dozen other pieces he could barely see the way back to his car.
There she was, waving at him with a radiant smile. He pulled over and she came inside – “Dad, can you call mom and ask her if I can go over to Jennifer?”.
…
His phone was gone!
He couldn’t find it.
He quickly drove back to the dry cleaning, but it was gone, a busy street, all the people, gone. He could not believe it. As soon as he got home, he went to his laptop and tried to track his phone, but he knew the battery was dying. The last place where the phone had been seen was pinpointed close to the spot where he parked and after that… nothing.
Anna had taken the afternoon off and went for a walk to meet her friends for a latte. She always preferred walking and join the street turbulence.
In one of her steps, she hit something and… a phone?! She looked around to see if someone was looking for a lost phone, grabbed it and even waved it around to the passers… Then she took a second look at the phone and the back had a QR code and the following note “Found it? Scan the code” … she got her phone and scanned the QR code. It took her to the Track My Backpack website and to a form to send a message to the owner of the phone she had just found. It asked for her email address or her phone number, and it had a simple message field.
She sent the message.
It felt good. We are humans and a great deal of us doesn’t have all the photos and other phone stuff backed up. A phone always carries personal memories that will be lost forever.
When John got back home and saw her email he could not believe it!
Thanks to Track My Backpack and Anna’s message, John got his cellphone back (and surely reviewed his backups).
Trackmybackpack.com – tag all your belongings. Give them a chance to get back home if they get lost.
