...it was the worst of times.
12:30PM, Wednesday, April 30, 2014. PAYDAY!!! I decide to use my lunch hour to explore upgrading my poor old mobile phone to a newer model. Believe me, it had
reached its TERRIBLE TWOS! I've already done a bunch of research online,
and have narrowed the choices to a Samsung Galaxy S5 or an HTC One. Off
to the closest Verizon store (only 7.6 miles away according to their
website). I arrive and am greeted by a gentleman carrying what looks
like a fortified iPad. He asks my phone number, pulls up my info, and
informs me I will be helped by the next available representative.
There's a lot of aimlessly wandering people in this store. I wonder how
long this will take. It takes almost 20 minutes. Sheesh. But a nice
sales person asks my phone number, then insists on seeing
identification. I guess you can't talk to a Verizon sales clerk unless
you are positively ID'ed. We discuss the features of the phones, and
finally get down to the nitty-gritty. How much to walk out the door with
a new phone? $200 for the phone. I get that. But somehow we wind up at
$360, including a $30 "Upgrade Fee". Excuse me? You want me to pay $30
for the privilege of paying you more money?! I think not. The sales
clerk says she'll ask the manager if they can waive it, especially if I
buy a case/charger/screen protector bundle for $69.95. I was going to
buy a case anyway. But no, sorry, it's the end of the month, our budget
won't let us waive the fee. OK, bye. Amazing that they let me walk out
the door over $30, which to them is fricking PEANUTS! I left on
principle.
5:08PM, Wednesday, April 30, 2014.
Verizon store near my house. Same greeting and I'm told it will be a 25
minute wait! EXCUSE ME?!?!?! You have so few sales people that I have to
wait TWENTY FIVE MINUTES? Where's the manager? Right here! But she
can't do anything sales-wise, she just manages. What a useless position.
As well as the doorman. How about cutting the wait times and make the
doorman with the armor-plated iPad earn his living?
5:28PM, Wednesday, April 30, 2014.
A sales person ID's me, and we get down to business. I decide on the
Samsung, it just feels better than the HTC. Now the brass tacks: How
much to walk out the door? By the time we're done, it's $48. I'll pay
for the phone over 2 years, and while that negates the $50 rebate, for
some odd reason, Verizon knocks $10/month off the payment for the phone
so it's only a bit more than buying it outright, and I can upgrade again
in a year (instead of two) if I so desire. We have to wrangle the data
and access plan, but my bill, phone included, will only go up about
$4/month. The $48 is for a case, and a special "tempered glass" screen
protector. I generally don't like those things, they typically screw up
the touchability of the screen, but he insisted that this new "tempered
glass" works exceptionally well. OK. It's only $18. We futz around for a
while getting the phone activated and start the downloads of the apps I
already own. After an hour and fifteen minutes, I head home, happy with
the purchase. Of course, now I'm on a limited data plan (1GB/month, my
average over the last 2 years is about 500MB/month, give or take a bit),
and I get a message that over 50% of it has already been used! In the
15 minutes it took the salesman to get the phone activated and connected
to the store's Wi-Fi, it has automatically downloaded over 270MB of
apps and data from the cloud backup! (The plan is pro-rated and we're
almost halfway through a billing cycle.)
6:45PM, Wednesday, April 30, 2014.
Nothing like an evening spent setting up apps, logging into accounts,
and getting everything arranged on a new phone. I like the feel of it.
When I'm convinced I have everything off the old phone, I move its SD
card to the new phone for extra storage. Now it's time to put some
security on this thing. The Samsung has a fingerprint reader. The
reviews said "meh", but I thought I'd try it. You swipe the spot on the
screen a few times, it tells you "OK", and you enter an alternative
password, so I pick a doozey. I won't need it, right? The fingerprint
scanner lets me in after no more than 2 or 3 swipes - it takes some
getting used to, I guess. Then it's time to bundle this thing up in its
brand new Otterbox case, with special Tempered Glass screen protector.
Now to play some more. Except...the fingerprint reader will simply not
accept my fingerprint. It doesn't see me swiping at all! I should have
known better than to buy the damn thing, but the salesman assured me
that this Tempered Glass worked! I use the alternative password. Takes
about 4 tries to get it in, even though I see the proper characters
being typed into the box. Finally I am in, and decide to hell with the
fingerprint scanner, so I turn it off, and choose "Password" as my
screen security. I don't put in a tough one, c'mon, it's a phone, not
Fort Knox, right? But it takes about 6 tries to get the passwords to
type in twice the same way (we're talking 6 characters here, it's not
rocket science). But this Tempered Glass protector is just screwing me
up. I get the password in twice the same, and I'm good to go.
10:45PM, Wednesday, April 30, 2014.
The damned thing will NOT unlock. The password simply will not work. I
take the Tempered Glass screen protector off it, but no dice. Whatever I
saw and thought I typed in as a password (6 characters, remember?) is
not being accepted. And to make it worse, it's counting down to "Factory
Reset of phone"!!! WTF?!?!?! "4 more tries before..."..."3 more tries
before...", yeah, you get the picture. I had no choice. Wiped the damn
thing clean. EVERYTHING. All apps, all data, the SD card.
11:00PM, Wednesday, April 30, 2014. Bed time. I can't sleep. Too pissed off. Too keyed up.
8:00AM, Thursday, May 1, 2014.
At work. Sitting in the data center with the AC repair tech. Time to
play with the phone. Again. I reactivate it, and before I can get the
damn thing attached to work Wi-Fi, it's downloaded a bunch of stuff
again! By the time I get an email program configured, I've now used 75%
of the monthly allotment and it resets on May 17!!! Now I'm really
unhappy, and decide to do something about it.
5:00PM, 1 May 2014. Back
at the Verizon store, and unfortunately more than a little worked up
because the manager is assuring me that they can't do anything about the
lost data. Refund me for the Tempered Glass? Sure. Add data or give me
credit since I'm sure as hell not leaving until you do. She hands me off
to a guy who within 5 minutes has refunded my money, added a $15 credit
to my account to cover any data overages between now and the 17th. I
also got $11 for trading in the old phone.
6:00PM, 1 May 2014.
Home. Stopped by the Food Lion and got my contribution to tomorrow's
cookout at a friend's house - bell peppers and an onion. Came home and
sliced it all up, added 3 or 4 cloves of garlic, some adobo spice and
olive oil. We'll grill them tomorrow with the steaks and potatoes. With the Maker's Mark!
Oh, I turned off the "Wipe the phone"
feature!!!
