This is not gonna be a real blog because I am in the process of doing some research for a family member. I do wanna say that I located a girl from my kindergarten class a few days ago. Craziness! I remember she was the best colorer (is that a word?) and I was the best artist. Hehe. And I spoke to my kindergarten teacher the other day as well. Told her about me locating my former classmate and we chit-chatted about this and that... It's nice to be able to keep in touch with people. Speaking of which...
I hate people who fail to maintain "adequate" contact with you. For example, about a month ago I got a brand new cell - number and phone. My old phone broke, thanks to my stupid dog, and I hated my wireless carrier (screw you, Sprint!) and I switched over to something better (Yay, Verizon!). Well, once I was pretty sure I'd be keeping my new service and phone number, I sent out an e-mail to some people informing them of the matter. I made sure to mention that since my old phone was broken that many of my numbers in my cellular address book were unretrievable and for that reason to please give me their numbers again. Those "S. Hoes" didn't get back to me! Well, some did. But most didn't! Fockers. I take things personal, but is that wrong? I'll assume you don't want me to have your number, and even if I locate your numbers written elsewhere, I shall not contact you cuz you don't want me to have your number anyway. So, hmph! :-P Some people are sOoOooo RUDE!
I guess this one is a "real" blog. About my cell phone experience... I had Sprint PCS for 2-years. Yep. They got me with that 2-year contract. And my service would have ended some time this month had I not gotten pro-active. Ya see, Sprint, for me, at least, totally, totally sucked. I mean, the fact that my calls often got dropped was not cool. One friend of mine, who also had Sprint, which meant we could call each other free, would often choose to call me on my landline phone because she said whenever she called my cell it would sound like I was talking to her from a tunnel. Now, that just shouldn't be given we were talking on the same network. And then, my phone just would not hold a signal in my own house. I mean, my stupid phone would drain it's own battery cuz it was constantly searching for service while just sitting there on the kitchen table or wherever. What kinda mess is that?
So... the fact that I quit my job and became a stay-at-home mom meant: that's right - I was staying at home a lot. I'm talkin' 95% of my time is/was spent in the home. And since I was home all the time, I couldn't even use my own freakin' phone that I was wasting so much money on. One of the perks of having a cell is that you can call anywhere in this country at the same rate. I wanted to be able to use some of my "anytime minutes" for certain necessary calls. But I couldn't cuz I could never get a freakin' signal at home. And it didn't matter if I stood next to an open window or not. I would literally have to go outside to make a call. But that's not cool to have to go through all that trouble, especially when you also have to care for an infant. And to me, that's just simply not acceptable to have to spend your dough on inferior service!!
Well, I began to contact Sprint. I started by contacting them via their website, filling out an online form. There was a box to type in a number where you could be reached, so I typed in the house phone. But within the text of my comment, I provided them with my cell number so they could use it as a reference in case they wanted to access my account info or something. Well, those idiots called me back on my stupid cell phone even though I specifically told them in my message that I COULD NOT be reached on my cell phone because the stupid phone did not work inside my house, which is where I spent the majority of my time. So, the idiot who called left a message on my cell and sent me an e-mail. Oh, and let me digress for a moment...
At the risk of sounded bigoted, but I don't really care cuz I'm not particularly known for being politically correct all the time... I HATE for telephone representatives to have foreign accents. I really do! I mean, if I'm trying to get some help or service, I want easy and accurate communication. I do not like the feeling that what I have just said was not fully understood, nor do I enjoy having to say, "Hunh?" or "What?" or "Could you repeat that?" just because Mr. or Ms. Foreign Person doesn't know how to enunciate the proper English letters. If a company wants their customers to be happy and satisfied, they need to provide them with enjoyable experiences in every aspect. The same goes for those in the medical profession. I need to know what the hell my doctor is saying. You can't F with a person's health. Especially for the fact that some people are afraid to ask someone to repeat something for fear of sounding stupid or cuz they hate having someone repeat the same thing in their broken English over and over. Okay. Enough of that. Just had to get that off my chest. Back to Sprint...
There was a whole lotta back and forth correspondence, mostly through the e-mail because I didn't feel like calling and waiting in cue until someone could answer my call. One rep assured me my concern would be solved 100% to my satisfaction. It wasn't. So I continued to contact them. I had a main line and one additional phone line. My main line was scheduled to expire this month, and the second line, they told me, wasn't to expire until December '06. That was quite a shock for me. Because as far as I was concerned, my 2nd line would end right along with my main line. So I was upset to hear that.
There were times where I had to call them from my cell and stand outside. And this was when it was just starting to get crisp and cool outside. That would not have been cool for me, if I wanted to make a call using my cell phone and be able to watch my child, to have to go outside when we are approaching winter. I don't know how many people I spoke to and you can see that every rep has their varying levels of knowledge and experience. People would tell me slightly different things. Despite my rant about hating foreign telephone reps, don't get me wrong, all of the Sprint reps I dealt with were courteous to me. But courteous doesn't pay the bill. One of the things that I was told, since I wanted to lower my monthly bills if I was gonna have to be stuck in my contract(s) was that I could pay something like $5.95 a month for a vacation plan that would last 6 months and then revert to your original plan. I figured six bucks was better than paying $35/line. And then after six months, pay the $35 and then, "go on vacation" again. So, that was my temporary solution; to lower my payments if be released from my contract without paying that steep $150 cancellation fee. I figured it'd be cheaper to ride the contract out.
But then I went ahead and got me and my husband Verizon service because I really needed/wanted a cell phone and since we make most of our calls to each other, it made sense to be able to call each other for free than use up minutes, not to mention, when I did leave the house, I needed to be able to contact him (remember, my Sprint phone was broken). Well, the girl at the wireless counter told me that with the vacation plan, that's like suspending your account for six months. Which means, after 6 months, your plan goes back to having x amount of time left in the contract that it had before you went on vacation. For example, if I had about 13 months left in a contract and I decided to do the vacation plan, after six months, I thought I would have 7 months left in my contract. But no - after six months "vacation", I would still be at 13 months left. Ain't that a bitch? Had I not gone for new phones, I may never have found this out.
So I contacted stupid Sprint when I got home and the person I spoke to that time said that was true about the vacation crap. So much hassle! Then I was told a technician would be sent to my area to look into the coverage issue. I was told that if it was determined the service could not be improved, that my cancellation fee would be waived. This rep also said she was sure I would see improvement in my coverage, but that she wasn't sure when and to just wait. Crazy thing, though, when she sent me this message, I found out a few days later when I listened to the voicemail on the cell phone, a technician had left a message. His message was timestamped one day before the e-mail. He told me that technicians had already been to my area, that it was determined that the area was prone to poor signals, AND that there were no plans to improve service in the near future. This contradicted what the one lady told me in the e-mail.
Gosh. This story is too long. Lemme try to hurry up. Basically, the last call I made to Sprint, I talked to a nice woman named Melanie and she listened and looked into my record. She saw that there was no evidence that a contract had even been signed for that second line of mine and therefore, she basically helped me out by setting up the line to be cancelled. She also figured that since I only had one month left on the contract for the main line that it was no big deal to end my contract one-month early. My savior!
It was about time someone did something for me. She was thorough and I'm glad she answered my call! This took a few weeks, contacting Sprint and trying to get out of my contract, but thank goodness I was persistent! All that run-around for crappy service. My money had been going down the drain. There was little to no value for my money and I was a very unhappy camper. Those stupids would try to ask me if there was a lot of metal or if my house was made of brick, trying to give cause for the sucky service. I told them, did it really matter since even if I stood by the sliding glass door, I still couldn't hold a signal? And I was told some b.s. about the brick deflecting the signals, yada yada yada...
Now, I've been very negative about Sprint and maybe it's a little unfair since some people who subscribe have decent service. But it just was NOT the provider for me and Verizon has been better. I was so happy to discover that I could actually talk on my cell and not have the call be dropped immediately after initiating a conversation, or a greeting, for that matter.
Alright, so there you have it. My bittersweet victory. :-P
A couple blogs ago I mentioned a kid that was on "Big Brother 6" who I said went to my high school and bagged at the commissary with me... Well, if you went to my high school and have the 1995 yearbook, you can find him. And I believe his sister's also in the 1994 volume. Yeah, that f*ggot's name was spelled "Bo". And now he goes by "Beau". I remember him as being nice, though. Oh, and wouldn't you know it, I was looking through old notes from high school and I found one where I made direct reference to Bo. Anyhoo...
I'll end here cuz I was posta be doing some research. Here are some pics for your viewing pleasure. They're a few months old, but that's okay. I'll eventually bring you up-to-date. :)
Shirt says: "I'm having a bad hair day"
Just doin' some laundry! =)
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