My beloved Palm Pre was on its last legs. Dropped on the concrete one time too many, I suppose. Good house was a dead zone, but I was having problems way before the move. I didn't want to change phones until tax season was over because I depend on it for business calls. I pride myself on being accessible to my clients.
I've been pretty happy with Sprint and my phone - pre-concrete encounter, anyway. So Friday I headed to the closest Sprint store. Bought a Kyocera Echo. An Android operating system. Turns out, it was brand new - just out two weeks. I'm generally not an early adopter, but since I'd be stuck for two years, I decided to take the plunge. Besides, I had 30 days to return it. Oh, minor detail. They no longer sell Palm phones.
I left with my new phone, ready for the challenge of learning how to use it. I did fine until I decided to activate the security lock. It's like Tic Tac Toe - you have to swipe four dots to unlock it. This was Saturday night. I didn't write down the sequence because it seemed so natural. Sunday morning when I got up, I unlocked it. But I didn't. Seems I'd forgotten the pattern. The last 30 hours have been spent on a quest to reset the fuckin' phone. I started with trying lots and lots of combos. After five tries, though, you have to wait 30 seconds to try again. Oh, I read online that there are 975,368 possible combinations. I'm thinking there are fewer than a thousand, since you can't reuse a button. But still. That's a helluva lot of patterns.
I gave up after an hour or so and called Sprint Support. They gave me some crazy combination of buttons to push and hold - power, volume down, home. Finger Twister. After 45 tries, I asked them to escalate my call. Of course, that just means a supervisor comes on the phone after a 20 minute wait and tells me the same shit to do. Oh, I did read the manual, and it referred to a forgot lock button. Whatever the hell that is. Oh, idiot Sprint people told me to enter a code. Kinda hard to do when dots are my only option. They said to enter my gmail password. Ditto re dots. This went on and on and on. I started googling. User forums, manufacturer's website, you name it. I even paid $30 for some kinda support thing which can coach you through everything from cell phones to divorces to plumbing and electrical work. Scary. Not a single one of these so-called experts did anything but regurgitate the meaningless drivel I'd already found. Damn, I could be an expert on lotsa things. If I weren't so busy, I'd consider it. Except I'd probably type out a string of expletives and get fired.
I gave up. Dude and I Skyped. I went to bed. Woke up at 3 a.m. and started trying again. Finally, at 9:30, I called the nearest Sprint repair center. They checked with the tech and he said just to get them to exchange it. So I headed to the store I'd gotten the fuckin' phone from and they said I'd have to get a hard reset. At another store. So I headed down Poplar and handed it over and sat and read a year old Oprah magazine. 30 minutes later, they came and said I'd need to exchange it. At the original store. Fuck.
Back I went. Michael, who seemed so nice when I bought the phone (can we say commission?) turned into the spawn of Satan. I told him that I was upset about having to waste so much time, and he started defending Sprint. Maybe he was afraid it would reflect on him. My only point was that the company shouldn't sell a product they couldn't support. No reflection on him. He kept it up and finally I said, "Just agree with me." He didn't argue anymore, but he started moving in slow motion. Passive agressive behavior. I have no tolerance for that. Finally got the new phone and high-tailed it out of there. Made a bee-line for the Verizon store 20 feet away. Turns out they have a Palm Pre 2 and their unlimited package is the same price. I'd have signed up and walked back to Sprint and gotten the hell out of the hell, but the Verizon girl had to order the Pre.
Just as well, because I wanted to call Sprint executive offices to circumvent the customer service seventh circle of hell and vent to someone with a brain. Sound familiar? Left message with investor relations. Waiting to hear. One more hour and I'm going straight to the top. All I need to do is find the CEO's name and number on the 10Q and call and say I need to talk to him. Tell his gatekeeper that it's a personal matter and that he'll know who I am. I think I'll say Tiffany or Tammi. Or I could find out which firm does their audit and say I'm with them and I need to talk to him about my letter to the audit committee. Better yet - I'm with the SEC.
Actually, I've never had to resort to lies.
Ok, I'm gonna go check on The D and Sarita. Try to breathe. And come back so I can call Comcast. My email is hosed. I won't even go there...
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