Gentle Wit

Among the goings on during my lack of posting, the most notable is probably the ordeal with me losing my cell phone. If you know me even a little you’ll understand how utterly devasting this is for me to be cut off from having a phone. Of course I have gone without a cell a fair number of times, like when I accidentally sent one through the rinse cycle. The fact of the matter is that I’m decidedly dependent on having one readily available. But if my prior experiences have taught me anything, it’s that getting a replacement phone isn’t all that difficult given a moderate amount of patience.

The problem in this particular instance — aside from my near complete lack of patience — is that Sprint wasn’t all that cooperative given the fact that I just had a phone replaced. And while my contract allows for up to two free replacements, truth be told the last replacement shouldn’t have been covered since it was due to (excessive) water damage. So, I wasn’t surprised when the CSR I spoke with was rather noncommittal about how much this new cell phone might cost me. (“You may be liable for anywhere from $150-$400 depending on the phone, ma’am.”) She was also not so very specific regarding when the phone would arrive. “It may get there as early as tomorrow [Tuesday], but you should have it by Friday.”) If all that weren’t enough to make things all manner of complicated, Thursday evening I noted that UPS tracking had rescheduled the shipment for Tuesday — as in tomorrow. Stupid me, however, didn’t bother checking the tracking again until Saturday — where it said clearly that the shipment had in fact been delivered bright and early Friday morning and so I bolted downstairs to the mail room to locate my phone . . . and didn’t find anything.

I’ll spare you the boring details of my HOUR ON HOLD with Sprint nor will I bore you with detailing all the transferring around that happened that allowed me to be hung up on twice and reitterate the entire sequence of events to ten separate people in various levels and departments. Basically I was told tough noogies because they’d replaced the phone and it was UPS that made the error this time. Oh, and if I wanted yet another replacement I should expect to have $300 tacked onto my bill, which already had a charge of $300 for the phone I didn’t get! By the end of it all my right ear was throbbing and I’d gotten so mad at the complete lack of assistance and cooperation that I up and canceled my service. Thus terminating a contract with more than a year remaining and ending nearly a decade of service with Sprint.

Suffice it to say I am still without a phone. I just set up service with Verizon, which I’m not entirely thrilled about — especially since the same plan I had through Sprint is almost $30 more through Verizon, but I believe I get a bit of that discounted as my Internet service is also through them. I’m due a new phone tomorrow, delivered to me by 3 PM to my office. In fact, the biggest disappointment is that I may loose my phone number since strictly speaking I have an outrageously large and outstanding bill with Sprint and as such they can demand that the phone number is theirs.

Still, I’m not sorry about canceling the service.