The authorized repair technician at Best Buy made me turn off “find my iPhone” before servicing the device. Turns out, somehow, I had two Apple accounts, one with a user name that is tied to my email address, and the other one where my user name is my email address. To my surprise Apple considers these to be distinct accounts. While I remember the password for my user name, and I assumed it was the same for the account that used my email address as the user name, turns out it was not and I could not turn off find my iPhone.
Attempts to use my phone to reset my password lead to the settings app freezing up and giving me a gave a generic “could not connect to network” error message. Switching from cellular to WiFi did not help the situation. The technician was about to say that they would not be able to replace the battery for the day. Fortunately I had brought my laptop with me that day for unrelated reasons and after returning to the store with it I was able to reset my password with the web interface.
Modern technology has introduced a large number of seldom used use cases that are not well handled, but are essential when needed. Had I not had all the devices with me in my digital arsenal, I would not have been able to get my battery replaced. I have to wonder how many people face this issue and end up buying a new device to avoid the hassle.