So yesterday I posted about how I was stuck with an antiquated phone while my Treo
was going to repair and how it was thoroughly annoying and frustrating to me. Well, the frustration hit new levels this morning. It was a heavy texting day. Lots of conversations going on about random upcoming happenings. And Twitter. Of course Twitter. Anyway, I found it positively madening to text on a regular keypad, whether on regular Alpha or T9 mode. It took so long to type a simple message that I almost didn’t want to text. That, of course, didn’t hinder my actual mass textage.
Apparently these older phones were not made for high-text capacity. Before 11am I had already run out of room for text messages. I received an error/warning box popup on the phone with each text received telling me that I was close to, and then that I had reached the limits of the phone’s texting storage and older messages were deleted. By 11am! That’s ridiculous.
It came to pass that I got out of work and returned home and proceeded to call Palm in order to take advantage of the warranty the phone was still under. It was discovered that the problems I was facing were not hardware related, but rather software. The fact that I dropped the phone had no effect on it’s performance. We performed a simple hard reset and the problem was solved. The Palm associates were quite knowledgable and helpful throughout the entire process. Kudos to you, Palm, on some great Customer Service work!
And then I called Sprint. Actually I called twice. The first lady I spoke to was wonderful. She seemed like she genuinely wanted to help. I explained my story to her: “My regular phone was damaged so last night I switched it over to an older temporary phone while the other would be repaired. It so happens that the manufacturer fixed the error over the air, and so I want to switch it back now.” She promptly reactivated my Treo, but since I was calling on the temp phone I had to call back for programming. No problem. She finished up her legal talk at the end, thanked me for calling, and paused. It seemed like she was trying to think what to say next to finish business, but instead, “I hope you have a wonderful evening,” came forth. And it seemed like it was a genuine good-wishing stemming from within a genuine good-hearted person. It took me aback for a few seconds. I wished her the same and we ended the call.
The second time I called (via Skype) was not so pleasant. I mean, the lady was nice, but it was obvious she was reading from a book. I told her, “I just called to get my phone activated, but the previous lady asked me to call back for programming.” Sprint rep #2 seemed to have a hard time grasping what I was talking about. She wanted to go through the steps in her book. So we did. When we entered the programming mode, I noticed the phone was already programmed from the day before. I tried to explain this to her, but she didn’t understand. She made me go through the steps, but I was getting errors because the information I was entering was the same as what was already in there, and so the phone kept telling me, “Hey stupid! You’re not changing anything!” This too she did not understand. We were stuck on this step for 15 minutes. Finally the conversation looked like this:
Me: It looks like it’s already programmed.
Sprint Lady: No, we haven’t done it yet.
Me: Well, we can test it. If I call my voicemail and it connects, then it’s all setup. If it doesn’t then I can just program it with a bogus number and then reprogram it with the right information.
Sprint Lady: …….
Me: I’m going to try it.
Sprint Lady: Sir, you need to program it.
Me: It is programmed. I’m going to call my voicemail.
Sprint Lady: You can’t get voicemail. It’s not….
Me: Ok, it connected my voicemail. It works.
Sprint Lady: Sir, it won’t…
Me: ::Holds up voicemail on speakerphone to mic::
Sprint Lady: ….
Me: We’re all good here.
Sprint Lady: Ok, sir, you won’t be able to make any calls for at least 2 hours….
Me: I just made a call.
Sprint Lady: No, it will take at least 2 hours for voice, and 4 for data.
Me: Um…
Sprint Lady: Thanks for calling Sprint.
Me: kthnxbai
Sprint Lady: Bye.
Well, something like that. I liked Palm lady. I like Sprint Lady #1. Sprint Lady #2 annoyed me. But in either case, the Treo works now. The L button was damaged in the process of the last few days, but though it is ugly it still functions to some degree. I’m just happy to have my QWERTY keyboard back. I am happy to have my Treo once again… at least until I get the iPhone. And I am listening to Guns ‘n Roses
on iTunes. Things are good.
Oh, and some other random goodness that has befallen me today:
– The boss is on vacation for the rest of the week.
– I finally ordered a replacement disc for MediaShout so that I can get the laptop setup and stop carrying that blasted desktop to and fro’ the Liberty.
– Went to Van Gogh’s Ear cafe with friends and listened to poetry and live music.
– Made a significant, yet hushed, purchase with the help of a good friend. More on that later.
– Played Scrabble
and won, beating out Michael, Castro, and (for the first time ever) Janelle.
Good night and fare thee well. May peace be with you.
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