The new cell phone arrived on my doorstep yesterday afternoon, so I went down to the local proprietary brand telephone store after work to get it activated, and to add data service to my account.
The kids at the store (and I DO mean "kids" - I don't think a single one of them was over the age of 30) were very helpful, but unfortunately, completely incompetent. After waiting around for half an hour while KidA tried to access my account online, and KidB tried to help her find the service plan I wanted, and KidC looked on giving various unhelpful suggestions, while KidD searched through drawers and cupboards to see if they still had any blue tooth stereo headsets in-stock (which, of course, they didn't), they finally told me, "Okay, everything should be working. Just turn the phone off for about 20 minutes, then turn it back on." I purchased a mini-SD chip from KidD (which, not surprisingly, had been price-stamped $20 below what the computer said it should sell for - and for which he gave it to me at the deeply discounted price anyway), and headed out to my meeting.
After the meeting was over, I decided to test the phone; no signal. I went home, got online and tried to change some settings on my service account, none of which seemed to help either. After that, all that I could really do was to turn it off, plug it into the charger, and hope for the best in the morning.
As of this a.m. still no signal. When I got to work I called the toll-free activation hotline number I'd been given by the nice CS lady I'd spoken with last week, and after more than an hour of fiddling, the rep was finally able to: A.) update the phone type that was listed on my online account; B.) cancel the incompatible data plan that the kids at the store had incorrectly enrolled me in last night; C.) re-enroll me in the correct data plan; D.) activate the phone; E.) send a test call to ensure it was working; and F.) verify that the data account was working correctly.
Once again, Customer Service to the rescue.
So, I now have access to both my work and home email accounts, I've downloaded my MS Outlook contacts & calendar from my work computer, briefly browsed the Interwebs, checked my voice-mail, and received two product solicitation text-messages from my service provider. Presumably, I can also listen to music (some of which I'll download this evening), watch videos, take and upload photos, and who knows what-all else. And I can conceivably do all this anywhere in the world I can pick up a signal.
You're Talkin' A Lot, But You're Not Sayin' Anything
Oh, I guess the one bit of minor news from last week was that I lost my cell phone Thursday evening/Friday morning, somewhere between the aforementioned SLOG meetup and work, when I discovered a dangling piece of the phone holster still attached to the belt clip hooked to my haversack sans the cell phone itself. Realizing that it could be literally anywhere between those points, attempting to recover it seemed ludicrious, although I did make a call to it, just in case anyone had found it and picked it up; no luck.
So, I had to get a new phone. Now, my inner geek has been pining away, like a Norwegian Blue for the fjords, for the new-fangled Moto Q from Motorola, a nifty, all-in-one PDA/phone device (similar to a Blackberry) that would allow me to also (mostly) dispense with my 5+ year-old Palm Zire. The only problem? My wireless service account wasn't due to roll-over until April, meaning I wasn't eligble for a phone upgrade until then. I could get another phone similar to what I already had, but then I'd be locked into another two-year contract.
What to do? I called my account provider, and a very nice customer service rep was able to reset the date of my service contract, so that I could upgrade without penalty. But, naturally there was a complication. The phone I wanted was available, but for some reason the additional $150 rebate offered on the web site wasn't if I ordered through her. However, through some back-door wheeling-and-dealing, she was able to put me in touch with their web site CS Dept., who was able to sell me the phone with the rebate intact.
So, I now have a brand-spanking new, top-of-the-line Moto Q9 winging its way to me, courtesy of FedEx, and some very helpful reps at AT&T Wireless.
