“I hope I don’t
see you soon,” I said, heading out the door.
“Happy new year!”
It doesn’t seem
like a very nice thing to say, but under the circumstances it was the
truth. Around Dec. 17th I
began experiencing problems with my cell phone.
When I slid out the keyboard, the screen would go blank. I couldn’t see what I was typing when the
keyboard was out, but the rest of the phone worked normally, so I dealt with
it.
In the next couple
days, my screen decided to stay white and blank all the time. And because it wasn’t supposed to be blank,
there was no short little message indicating “This Screen Left Intentionally
Blank.” I always find that message amusing
as it makes the screen, card, or paper no longer blank when it’s on there. I could still make calls and text, but I
couldn’t see anything on the screen, so I was limited to those people whose
numbers I know or whose place on my list of contacts I could remember.
A Delayed Reaction
My husband and I
went to the Verizon store before Christmas, and they suggested I just upgrade
my phone since we were eligible and it wasn’t likely my phone could easily be
fixed. I got the newer version of the
phone I had. The salesman added my
contacts to the new phone, and I got a new car charger. The one I had before would have worked if it
hadn’t somehow gotten bent. Yes, there
is a pattern here: cell phones, accessories, and I don’t always work well
together.
I thought the
surreal screensaver on the new phone was kind of cool, and it was nice to have
a screen that worked. A few days of
using the phone, though, and I got a little frustrated. When I pushed a button, it would take
literally 5-7 seconds before the phone would respond. Holy delayed reaction, Batman! It was a minor inconvenience most of the
time, but a real project when I tried to text someone quickly.
It Could Be Worse
Now mind you,
this has been in no way as bad as the cell phones and mobile service through
T-Mobile that my mom and sister have. Their
issues have been significantly worse. My
mom texts Theresa, and it will sometimes take 8 hours for the text to show up
on my sister’s phone. As you can
imagine, it is more than just a tad inconvenient that it would literally take
about as much time to drive all the way up to Ohio, roughly an eight hour trip
from here, and talk with my sister in person rather than text her.
One of the most
extreme signs of needing to get a new cell phone and new service
occurred while
my sister was home for Christmas break.
Her friends had texted and hadn’t heard from her. It was the middle of the night, and she
wasn’t at their place where she’d planned to be, and no one could reach her, so
they called my mom who got in her car and was driving around the city looking
for Theresa. She was fine, thank God,
but she hadn’t gotten anyone’s messages or calls, so she didn’t know they were
worried.
Knowing full well
that my cell phone woes weren’t nearly as severe as those my mom and sister
have had, I still thought it would be nice to text a quick response to someone,
so I went back to the Verizon store last week.
The salesman was kind and, as usual, baffled as to why my phone had such
a delayed reaction to anything I typed in.
He replaced it with a new model of the same phone, transferred my
contacts, and I was on my way.
“You can’t hear me
now?!”
This week, my
screen works, I can text without a problem, but no one can hear me very well
when I talk on this phone. Everyone says
I sound fuzzy. I thought maybe it was
just a fluke, an isolated incident, but no.
Each person I’ve spoken with has said they can barely hear me, so I went
back to the Verizon store again today, and explained the ongoing saga of my
cell phone trauma to yet another sales clerk.
He suggested I
get a different model of phone, which I agreed to doing. He transferred my contacts, logged the latest
issues into their database, and gave me a new phone which so far has a cool
screensaver, a screen that works, a reasonable response time for typed in
commands, and people can actually hear me when I talk on it.
I sincerely hope
I will not be seeing any of the kind salespeople at the Verizon store anytime
soon. Don’t get me wrong, they’re nice
people and have provided good customer service, but enough is enough. My hope is that the third time’s the
charm…like with our Christmas tree fiasco this year. (I’m pretty sure family Christmas tree reject
#2 is still out in my mom’s front yard if you’re interested.)
