“Send me a screenshot.”
That was one of several things I heard today while standing outside my house, taking pictures of our solar equipment and texting them to a technician.
At some point I thought, Apparently, I work in solar now.
Let me back up.
We had our solar system installed in 2024. Along with the equipment came an app that allows us to see how the system is performing.
At least, that is what it is supposed to do.
For more than a year, my husband and I had been frustrated because what we were seeing in the app didn’t seem right. We made phone calls, talked to multiple representatives, and spent hours trying to get answers.
Part of the problem is that there are several different companies involved with our solar system, and each one is responsible for a different piece of it.
Then, out of the blue, we received an email from a company we’d never heard of. They told us they had been contracted to monitor the performance of our system but couldn’t access the data because we hadn’t enabled site sharing.
They asked us to provide access.
There was just one problem.
We couldn’t.
We replied and explained that we’d been trying to resolve issues with our account for more than a year. My husband even told them that I had “talked to everyone under the sun and NOBODY helped us.”
Yes, under the sun.
Considering this was about solar, I appreciated his choice of words.
After we sent that reply, there was radio silence.
My husband wanted answers, so he started calling.
First, he contacted the new monitoring company. When that got him nowhere, they suggested he contact the company that had hired them, the same company connected to our solar loan.
I watched his frustration grow as he became trapped in an automated phone loop, trying unsuccessfully to reach an actual human being.
And as I listened, I had a thought.
Why don’t we call the company that actually made the equipment?
More specifically, why don’t we call the company responsible for the equipment and the app we’re having trouble with?
It seemed worth a try.
So, I called.
That’s when my temporary career in solar began.
The technician and I talked. He asked questions. I answered what I could.
Then he started texting me.
“Send me a screenshot.”
I sent one.
He asked for something else.
I went outside and took pictures of the equipment attached to our house. I sent those too.
He would look at something on his end and then ask me to check or send something from mine.
Back and forth we went.
And then he found it.
Our account had never been set up correctly.
When our system was commissioned in 2024, a user account had been created, but it had not been properly associated with the registration number for our actual equipment.
Then he told me something else that made the whole situation even more interesting.
The monitoring company that had emailed us asking for access shouldn’t have needed to come to us for it. According to him, they should have contacted the equipment company directly. He could provide the access they needed once our system was properly registered.
In other words, we had received an email asking us to fix something we weren’t actually in a position to fix.
The equipment existed.
The account existed.
The app existed.
They just weren’t properly connected to one another.
The technician recreated the account, properly associated our equipment with it, and told us what to do next.
My husband logged into the new account.
And there it was.
Problem solved.
After more than a year of frustration, phone calls, questions, and attempts to figure out what was wrong, the answer wasn’t that the solar equipment wasn’t working.
We had simply been trying to solve the problem through people who couldn’t see the part that was actually broken.
That got me thinking.
How often do we do that in other parts of our lives?
We keep asking the same person.
We keep calling the same department.
We keep trying the same solution.
We explain the problem one more time, hoping that somehow this time we’ll say the magic combination of words that makes everything fall into place.
And when it doesn’t, we assume the problem must be complicated.
Sometimes it probably is.
But sometimes we’re simply asking the right question in the wrong place.
What struck me most about today’s experience wasn’t just that I finally called the manufacturer. It was that I reached someone who was willing to stay with the problem long enough to figure it out.
He didn’t just give me another phone number.
He didn’t tell me everything looked fine and send me on my way.
He said, “Send me a screenshot.”
Then another.
He looked at what I was seeing and compared it with what he could see.
We worked through it together until he found the disconnect.
There is something to be said about finding the right person—but there is even more to be said about finding the right person who is willing to keep looking.
And maybe that’s something worth remembering the next time we’ve been banging our heads against the same problem.
We may not need to try harder.
We may not need to explain it better.
We may not even need a different answer.
We may just need to ask someone else.
So, the next time something isn’t working and you’ve done everything you know to do, maybe instead of asking:
What else can I try?
Ask:
Who else can I ask?
You might be one screenshot away from finally finding the answer.
Theresa
Flexible Being
Empowering Your Journey to Healing, Clarity, and Self-Discovery.
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Theresa Martinez-Shapiro
Theresa Martinez-Shapiro is the founder of Flexible Being, a Reiki Master, Certified Oracle Guide, intuitive mentor, and writer based in Stockton, California. Through Musings of a Flexible Being, she explores healing, mindfulness, relationships, intuition, and personal growth with a grounded yet spiritual approach.
