For years I’ve been using my Wacom Intuos 3 and it’s worked reasonably well for me but I’ve always dreamed of owning a Cintiq. Every year when I get my bonus at work I could technically buy a Cintiq but I kept telling myself I don’t deserve one yet because I still have loans, car payment, etc. that I should put it toward… but you know what? I’ve put a lot toward those bills and while they are not completely gone, they have reached a manageable size and gosh darnit I’ve been working hard and I deserve a Cintiq!
So I decided to just take a peek on eBay to see if I could find a reasonably priced one… While I had decided I could finally afford one I couldn’t stomach using my entire bonus on it so it would have to be a used one. My oh my, my lucky stars. There it was – a Cintiq in great condition that I could actually afford without feeling too guilty! It was $700 but compared to its brand new retail price of $1700, I’ll take it!
I waited anxiously for it to arrive, peeping the USPS tracker every few hours, watching it’s progress. The seller shipped it quickly and it arrived in town within 2 days. I had it shipped to my office because I was out of town at the time so I could be sure someone would receive it for me. To my dismay, the next update said that there was a problem and it could not be delivered because the address was illegible! I tried to do the online chat with USPS but it just told me to call… so I called the local post office and after about 20 minutes of battle with an automated service, I was finally put on hold… an hour and a half later… I was still on hold… My cellphone battery was dying so I gave in and hung up. Clearly they had just put me on hold and had no intention of ever answering me. Clearly they don’t care about customer service at all.
As soon as I arrived in town I made a bee-line to the post office. Ok ok… I waited until my lunch break the next time I was at the office. The local post office serving where I work is on the complete opposite side of town from my home. Once I got to the post office and reached a clerk, they told me they didn’t have my package! They put it back on the truck to try and deliver it to the office again. I rushed back to the office and there was my Cintiq, lying in the office foyer in a giant raggedy box held together with strings of tape. I feared that I was getting a box of broken bits. It turned out that the address was perfectly legible on the box and the reason for delivery failure was that postage was due and no one in the office had cash the first time to receive it. The post man only takes cash… The seller tried to be cheap and under-paid shipping by $20! Luckily this second time, a kind co-worker paid the post man for me and my package was delivered. I immediately paid him back, extremely embarrassed about the house fiasco… unfortunately I actually had to borrow a $20 from one of my best friends who happens to work with me because I don’t ever seem to have cash on me… I don’t know what happens… I put a $20 in there and pfft! Gone! Who knows what I used it on.
I carried my big, battered box to my desk and took a deep breath and proceeded to carefully peel the box open. Thank goodness the Cintiq was heavily covered in bubble wrap because otherwise it would not have survived. Only the upper right corner was a little exposed and got a little scratched. It was very dirty and had old tape goo all over it. I quickly wiped it all down and set it up. I held my breath as it turned on, fearing a dead pixel or some sort of weird dark spot on the screen… thank my lucky stars it was perfect! It worked beautifully!
Hopefully this is the first of many steps to getting back to being a full time artist again.
