So...I've been using this beaut for the last of many months. I had a better phone, the Samsung Brightside, but it went into the drink, as golfers say, and never quite recovered. I called Verizon and you know how that went. They were ranked number 1 in customer service, but I believe this ranking was based on rudest people, most complicated website, longest hold timing, and most complex automated call system that one must pass through, as the Hobbits had to pass through Mordor, in order to talk to Rakeesh speaking to you clearly from New Delhi. I am not being racist or ethnocentric, I'm only saying how I was treated and what I went through. Their previous #1 status as best customer service made me know it just had to be based on these criteria. If it were other items, then I don't think they would have made the Top 1000. Why do we put up with all of this as capitalists? I don't understand this and maybe never will. You could have a billion dollars tomorrow if you ran a wireless company where you hired real people who answered the phone and made asking questions easy and treated each person like they weren't an ace idiot.
I found out the wonders that are Verizon Wireless after I drove my bike through what I thought was a small puddle on a nearby bike trail with my phone in my pants pocket, but what turned out to be a 7 foot deep area of swollen winter river and that although I had insurance on my phone it did not help me at all. If you are a Verizon customer, you know that insurance is a scam. My phone was purchased for $169 and it died. With my insurance plan, I could just pay them a small deductible of $150 and then get a phone of equivalent value...WHAT? This is the part of the phone conversation where I went silent and my friend asked me once again how the weather in Macon, Georgia was this time of year. I asked him to repeat what he said just so I could make sure what I heard was real. And it was because this time I was biting the insides of my cheek so I could make sure both types of pain where real. They were. I thanked the kind man from New Delhi for his time and hung up. I am sure they charged me for the call on my next bill. They should make a movie ala, "National Treasure", but make it entirely based on a Verizon billing statement. Wes Anderson could direct it and we could all watch Bill Murray make his way through the perils of a monthly statement while enjoying a $25 large Coke and a $29 bucket of popcorn. It would be more entertaining and far less expensive.
I did attempt to plead my case several times before the military tribunal that is the Verizon Wireless store. You know the place you go, someone meets at the door with a tablet, adds your name to a list that never changes, you go sit in front of someone who types your entire history as a human on the planet into a keyboard while looking annoyed and snarky and by doing so, they still have to go ask a manager, you wait for another 8 hours, they come back, type Psalm 119 into the computer system, you wait, they ask you to explain your problem again, they leave again, you wait, they return, they pass you onto the next person where you complete this cycle several times and then they release you without helping you, or you come out carrying a phone you didn't want, or now are on a plan you asked for the opposite of. You know the routine. You've been there. You may be reading this at a Verizon store. Read slowly, it is going to be awhile. What you should actually do is find the kiosk where you can pay your bill, go pay your balance, and smash the phone onto the floor and walk out. If people want to reach you, they can call you at home where you may call them back. If it is an emergency, they will get you. And you will have to react in the same time as the generations who came before us, invented life changing movements and devices. It will be ok. Twitter will move on without us. We can start paying attention to the real, not the virtual. We can demand to be sent a paper bill and let the people know, that we WILL NOT check the website.
Needless to say, I did not pay the deductible, but rather I dug through the confines of my past that make up the bottom of my sock drawer and found my old trusty Samsung flip phone that came free with my 2005 Verizon plan. I haven't gotten rid of it because I always find myself coming back to it. As phones become more advanced, they last less time and they trade in durability for more features. I have had a couple phones since my time with the old "Flip", but they usually die and I am thrown back into the arms of old faithful. So, par for the course, I left the Verizon store with my head down feeling downtrodden, headed home, and mined the old "Flip" out of the sock drawer, called Verizon, spent a year or two weaving my way through the maze that is the Verizon automated phone system, and finally had a phone that worked.
Eight months went by with very few mishaps with old Trusty, but then it began to fade like a dying star. Function by function, bar of service by bar of service, key by key, things began to go south for the Flip. The last straw came three weeks ago when I was talking to Sweet Melissa while holding FH. He grew tired of the conversation and tossed the phone from my hand onto the hardwood floor. The screen went black, several keys went flying, and it never really recovered. I sent out a message to anyone that had an old phone that they wanted to be rid of and pretty soon the top of my dresser looked like the dresser of Jack Bauer. I had something like eight phones sitting in a line. It looked like I was running from the government and needed a pile of burner phones.
I took my little pile of phones back to the Verizon Gulag and after one trip back home to retrieve a charger, I walked out with this little slice of LG perfection. I am still learning how to use it. An old fraternity brother gave it to me. I guess all those networking opportunities the guys from the national office of the fraternity were always trying to get us to think about really are real; or at least in a handing down an old used cell phone kind of way. So, I am now walking around with this new shiny piece of technology and doing crazy things like receiving texts and talking on the phone indoors. I know. Weird. So be jealous for a little while. I know you are walking around using some app that tells you when to breathe on your iPhone 17, but I'm texting my boo and talking on the phone like a used car dealer (at stop lights and not while driving of course).
Happy Reading,
DAVID
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