New phone, old problems

After a little over two years I finally have a new cell phone. My friend said the old one was starting to look like a two-way carcinogen. An overall fair assessment on her part.

But my disdain for Sprint PCS, which is well documented, has somehow increased over the last few days. I honestly think retarded apes run the place.

So here’s an abbreviated version of how I came to contemplate therapy last night.

My day started yesterday when I was given a Sprint LGX-180 phone as a birthday present. I followed the instructions that were enclosed in a huge yellow brochure with tiny black print to activate the curse. It said I needed to locate the ESN number, an eleven-digit number (according to the reading material that made about as much sense as Finnegan’s Wake) on the battery, and call 1-888 something.

Of course I did all that and got the same female automated voice used by almost every company. You know the woman because she’s probably on your voicemail. The voice sounds like the Whore of Babylon, but probably doesn’t put out at all. I hate her.

DA DING DONG: “Welcome to Sprint’s customer service line. Please listen carefully because our menu has changed. If you’re a Sprint PCS employee calling to check on the whereabouts of your soul, please press 1. If you’ve been experiencing problems with your Bluetooth-980 headset with dual antennas, please press 2. If you’d like to listen to slow jazz for the next 45 minutes, please 3. If you’re an overweight Mexican and can’t understand shit I am saying, please press cuatro. If you’d like to hear this menu repeated more slowly and condescending, please press 5. For all other inquires we’d advise you to hang up and go to our Web site, which is more than likely under repair. Message 181.” HANG UP.

“Ah, god dammit anyway,” I said to myself. I called back and figured out which number to push in order to get a real person. I think it was cuatro. A woman named Jeanine picked up, who happens to be both extremely polite and extremely dumb.

“Oh hello, sir, what can I be of assistance with today?” I gave the reason I was calling and asked if I could have all of my contacts in my old phone transferred over to the new LGX-180 as well. “Oh that shouldn’t be a problem,” she informed me.

The conversation took maybe five minutes at most. Jeanine gave a couple of simple commands and said to wait about two hours and the phone would be activated and that all my old contacts would show up in roughly four hours. “This is great,” I thought.

However, in typical fashion things didn’t quite go as planned. Four hours soon became seven hours and my phone was still not working. And what about my contacts? God only knows where they were. Probably out making new contacts: Those backstabbers.

When I called again I got a male voice. I don’t remember his name, but homeboy seemed to have the same gleefully moronic disposition as Jeanine. He asked for my social security number and went through all the jazz to confirm that I wasn’t somebody else trying to access my account. Who would try to call these people if they didn’t have to, I thought? And what could they rob from my cell phone carrier other than my nights and weekend plan?

Abruptly, he asked if he could put me on hold while he accessed my account in the computer. I said that was fine and prepared for the elevator music to be cued. But it wasn’t and something far worse was: A dial tone.

Now, generally I try to keep my profanity to a minimum. Only in rare cases will I let f-bombs drop in multitudes of expressive rage that generally end with a certain part of the male anatomy being sucked. However, this was certainly one of those times.

I called back and began trying to take note of every detail I could. The woman who answered this time was Gale. Gale was bar none the stupidest human being I’ve ever talked to. She repeated this question twice: “So you’re having problems with your phone, right?”

For the first time, I snapped. “Gale, do people ever call to tell you guys how well their phone is working?” Gale didn’t respond. Gale then had the nerve to ask me how the weather was. Honest to god, that’s what she asked next. Didn’t even bother asking where I lived. “The weather is absolutely lovely, Gale.”



My friend sensed that it was no longer a good idea for me to keep talking. Taking the phone from my ear, she hung up on Gale and told me to calm down. I laughed at her certitude and sense of purpose immediately. “Why did you just do that?” She didn’t answer and called Sprint from her phone, leaving me to open a beer.

I sat down and proceeded to watch her talk to two Sprint representatives in a span of 25 minutes. After that, my new phone rang for the first time. And it was like seeing my first child come out of the womb – even though I don’t have children and wombs frighten the hell out of me.

All in all, the process took nine hours, five customer service operators, two people and one newly anointed 25-year-old’s sanity for the Sprint LGX – 180 to be activated.

Oh yeah, and later I was informed that I'd have to find a Sprint store at “one of our many convenient locations” in order to get my contacts transferred. Which would cost $30. Also, because they updated my account I was obligated to sign a new two-year contract.

By the end, I was so angry I decided to count the digits on the ESN number. And it was 17 digits long.

Fucking. Cock. Suckers.