Friday, September 19, 2008

I just want a damn phone that works!!...(oh, and Arrrrrrgh)

Okay....I think I just need to resign myself to the fact that I'm not going to remember to do this EVERY day. But I think only missing one day here & there isn't so bad.

Let me tell you about my week involving my phone. (Warning...this is gonna be long.)
Last week on Friday my phone stopped pairing with my bluetooth earpiece. (It may not sound like a big deal, but when you're in a long distance relationship and the majority of your contact with your someone special is over the phone, it's nice to have your phone working properly. It's also nice to have a bluetooth earpiece so you can go about your daily business around the house like cooking & stuff so you can have a 2 - 3 hour phone call and still get things done.) I called Verizon and did a few tests and they determined it was the phone that had the problem, not the earpiece. They ordered me a new phone to replace mine, but of course my phone had just passed the warranty date last month so I had to pay $50. Oh well, better than paying full price for a new phone.
Since they were sending it Fed Ex I had to wait until Tuesday to get it. Unfortunately, of course they tried to deliver it while I was at work so when I got home there was a note on my door saying I could sign the paper and have them leave it there the next day (which isn't a good idea because I live on a major road and my front porch is in plain view) or I could come get it that night at 6:00. Even though the only Fed Ex pick up location was 25 minutes away in Boise, I decided that was the best option. (Little did I know...) I arrived right around 6:00 and when the guy at the counter (who had the personality of a dead fish) scanned my door tag, he said it "wasn't back yet" and to come back in 15 minutes. So I went out to my car & waited 15 minutes. When I came back in, he scanned it again and again told me it wasn't there yet. I moved aside and this time stood in the office and waited. About 10 minutes later he asked to scan my tag again (don't they save that info the first time??) and said wait just a minute I'm going to go look in back. He was gone for 20 minutes. Seriously. At 6:45 he came back out and said "It's not here. I don't know where it is." Um....excuse me?? So I said, "You've lost it?" He said, "No, it's misplaced." So I said, "Which is the same thing as lost." To which he replied, "Yes, it's lost." (insert angry face here) He said that if they found it they would deliver it the next day. Oh yeah, that's what I want...so I can go through all of this again! So the manager came out to talk to me. I noticed she seemed a little perturbed when I told her that her counter guy admitted that they lost my package. However, while we were talking about what they were going to do to fix this situation, another woman came out from the back and said she had found it by going through the boxes one by one. So finally, around 7:00 I got my phone and went back home.
But wait, there's more! After arriving at home I eagerly opened the package and went through the directions to get it all set up. Things were looking good until I opened my phone up and saw that every time I pushed any button the screen would double up, making it nearly impossible to read what was on the screen. (Really fun when you're trying to send a text.) Also the front screen was intermittently going dark, even when buttons were pressed. Crap. At least it worked for a basic phone call and it paired up with my bluetooth earpiece so I made do with it for the rest of the night.
Wednesday after work I picked up the boys and headed to Verizon (my son was having problems with his phone also--same model, surprise--so I wanted to get his taken care of too.) Of course by the time I got there they were very busy so I had to type my name into a queue and wait to be called. When I got to the counter I explained the situation to the guy (luckily I had the manager so he was very competent and helpful) so he replaced my phone for me again. He also took care of my son's phone, ordering him a new one because they didn't carry his color in the store, and also didn't charge me for his replacement since I was having so much trouble. Before I left I told him that also my charger had been acting up, turning off & on while charging. He said that maybe it was my old phone so to try it with the new phone and if it still didn't work to bring it in and they'd replace it. So that night after getting my new phone set up and making sure it worked properly, I plugged in the charger before I went to bed. It did the same thing it did with my old phone. Okay, I have to take another trip out to Verizon tomorrow...
Thursday...after work...Verizon store...Luckily this time they weren't very busy and I just walked in & told them what I needed and they replaced it for me. Easy peasy. When it was time for bed last night, I was excited that I was finally going to have a phone that worked AND a charger that worked. I plugged the charger into the wall, plugged it into the phone and....nothing. Not charging. I pushed it in a little further and it kind of flashed the charging symbol for a second then stopped again. I moved the cord around a little bit to see if it helped but nothing I did would get it to charge. Crap. I knew I was going to have to take yet ANOTHER trip to the Verizon store on Friday. So I unplugged the charger from the wall, pulled it out of the phone and...wait a second...that doesn't look right...holy crap, the charger pulled out the whole charging slot from the phone!!! (insert another angry face here) Great, so the charger just broke the brand new phone. This is getting ridiculous.
Needless to say, I had a hard time falling asleep last night and woke up feeling tired & cranky. Today after work I get to drive over to Verizon again (did I mention it's a good 15 minutes from my house which equals gas that I'm wasting driving 30 minutes round trip for four days in a row??) Someone is going to fix all of this. I will fill you in later on how it went. But I have a feeling I'm NOT going to be in a good mood.

Oh yeah...and today is "National Talk Like a Pirate Day". Arrrrrrgh.

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