Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Four weeks without a functional cell phone.

I'll fill you in:

Shortly after I posted "No closer to a phone", which Jeff read btw and said that I made him sound like a ogre - he made arrangements to add me to his Sprint plan.

After three days, Jeff checked the order status and learned that the Samsung phone hadn't shipped yet. Sprint Customer Service whined that there must be a distribution problem, maybe an unusually high demand for that phone model. Jeff didn't buy the excuse and cancelled the order. He's like, "Guys, I do this for a living and you're full of sh*t."

So, he upgraded my existing account with Cingular and we waited a week.

Nothing shipped and attempts to check order status online failed. Jeff called Cingular Customer Service and got passed back and forth between them and AT&T Wireless before learning that the initial order had been cancelled by the ordering system almost immediately without explanation. They said, "Well, you must have received a cancellation email." Nope. Well, is the email address valid? Yup, we received the order confirmation email fine. They offered no explanation but suggested that we try ordering online again.

So, Jeff insanely1 went through the online ordering process again and this time, followed up immediately to check order status. After seven minutes, the order was still alive (woo-hoo) and was in the "shipping" phase.

I don't know what Sprint's problem was. The Cingular upgrade problem might have been related to my existing account, which was an employee account (on the "Business side" of AT&T, go figure), and the whole Cingular / AWS merger. I mean, my AT&T Human Resources ID # still appears at the top of my Cingular bill; it follows my name in the mailing address.

Well, the phone supposedly shipped via FedEx and we have a tracking number. It's scheduled to arrive tomorrow evening. So far, school hasn't tried to reach me. So, I haven't been burned by not having a cell phone. And I can otherwise certainly live without it.

Previous post on this topic:1"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." Attrib. Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, others

3 comments:

Moonshadow said...

Thanks for your comment, Ellen, I appreciate it.

Eh, we're comfortable shopping online. If this were our usual experience, I wouldn't even think to complain about it.

In-store shopping means (1) I either buy what they have instead of what I want or (2) they order what I want and I return a second time to pick it up. I may as well order it myself online.

the bunch is like a nursing home waiting to happen).

This is funny ... I have a mental picture of it!

They have a pre-pay phone, but they won't turn it on

Sure, I was like this before I had kids in school. I can understand that you and your siblings like being able to reach your parents while they are traveling.

So I just got another phone for my plan (for $10 a month I can tell them it's my phone and my minutes) and gave it to them.

Sure, first Jeff tried to get me on his plan, but his carrier failed to ship, so we cancelled.

Jeff may switch his service onto my plan at some point.

For a year or two, we've talked about merging plans but we tend towards the "if it ain't broke" inertia. And, in fact, having both worked in the industry, we know its "dark side" of provisioning, billing and network glitches.

We waited for the number porting process to streamline, for the GSM network rollout and for the AWS/Cingular merger.

But my phone "got broke" and my carrier will drop analog phone support, so we could not wait any more.

We actually thought that the carriers were in good shape and could handle the order. So, the fact that we have had this much trouble is quite a surprise!

Moonshadow said...

I have the added bonus of a starbucks in the same building

When I do my post critical of starbucks, I'll try to be sensitive to this!

I should mind my own business but want to say that, yesterday morning, I thought of you ... of your post ... when we read 1 Cor. 7:25-31.

"Part of my education has meant coming head on with attitudes toward singles that I never wanted to know existed." -- "My Education"

The body of Christ does fail to extend to singles in the midst the same grace. I, too, have noticed this indirectly.

Perhaps my tendency to see married and single as equal before God colors my reading of Paul's advice to the Corinthians but folks who debase singlehood seem unyielding to 1 Cor. 7.

Moonshadow said...

I said something that clued her in ... her attitude totally changed.

Well, thank God for that.

We all need our consciousness raised on particular issues, our personal blind spots. (Matt. 15:25-28)

And you did it without being a thorn, but as an instrument of the Lord.