Nobrainer’s Think Tank

• I watched some football tonight; Washington is ok. Syracuse sucks. I’m fairly certain that more people show up for Syracuse’s basketball games than football games. That’s sad, especially since they have such an awesome primary color.
• I find that I usually cheer for Washington to win; I still think that Ty Willingham got a raw deal at Notre Dame. Similarly it is nice to see the Charlie Weiss coached Irish get shellacked.
• Today I saw the license plate WONTIOD. Can you figure it out?
• The plate was approximately the only bright spot in my trip from NoVA to Charlottesville. It took me slightly more than 3 hours to travel slightly more than 100 miles.
• In other news, we start recruiting soon for work. It reminds me too much of frat-club recruitment for me to be excited. On the upside, however, we are not lying through our teeth.
• For further proof that “reality show” means “canned like spam,” read the quotes from the reality-turned-docu-series producer.

My new phone is in-hand and fully functional. Between my last post and now, this is what happened:

I re-opened email communication with Sprint customer service. Unfortunately I was not reconnected with the first helper who, after giving me the wrong phone number to call for customer service, told me that all I had to do was tell him the model of phone and he promised it would be shipped to me and all would be taken care of (I didn’t take him up on the offer at the time because by the time I got the email I was on the phone with the very quiet, hard to hear Asian woman who apparently kept me on the phone for 10 minutes and had no intention of actually listening to me or trying to solve the situation).

The new helper was useless at first. Instead of taking a minute to understand the situation, I got a semi-canned and wholly useless reply. After that came another useless reply about getting a new phone through the optional insurance program (which I have never had). Then I responded with my precise situation and asked that someone from customer service actually call me. I was told that someone would call me… within the next 5 days. Remember kids, at Sprint, customers are #1!

After saying, “5 days, what the fuck are you smoking you piece of worthless human trash,” (Ok I didn’t actually say that), I was told that I simply had to go to the Sprint store and all would be well. Now, I didn’t bother to ask why the fuck she was telling me I had to go to the Sprint store when the previous helper told me he could take care of the problem. But I didn’t want to confuse the poor girl. Surely she spends the majority of her time trying to differentiate between her and and random holes in the ground.

So I go to the Sprint store. To be fair, the DMV-esque Sprint store deserves its own post, but that will have to wait. Anyway, I was eventually helped. The guy helping me took my account information and plugged it into his computer. It took him all of about 2 seconds to completely recognize the problems I had been having and why I was there. It was as easy as “You want a new phone and we’ll hook you right up.”

This all leads me to wonder why the ass-clowns at customer service could never figure this out?

On a side note, I really like my phone. It’s the m500, which is a flip phone that is slim but isn’t all awkward like the Razor. I’m glad I upgraded. My only complaint is that the default audio and visual schemes are so fruity only a pre-pubescent 13 year-old girl could find them at all attractive.

There’s one more twist to the Sprint rant I began yesterday. As you’ll recall, I communicated via email with customer service. I was told to simply “exchange” the phone I had already returned to them. Then I was given a phone number to call to have a new phone shipped to me. That phone number turned out to be incorrect, at least according to the person who eventually spoke to me on that line.

Well, after that call proved to be useless, I sent a response via email to customer service thanking them for giving me the wrong number and hoping that maybe they wouldn’t “accidentally” screw other people they way were screwing me.

At some point after the conversation with the very quiet and hard to hear woman which now seems to have been completely fruitless, I received a reply to my email. It basically said, “just tell us which model phone you want, and we’ll get it to you.” Obviously I am trying to get back to that track.

But think about it. I spent at least 10 minutes of a 38 minute phone call talking to some poor woman who seemed to have no idea what was going on. At least 5 times in the conversation I had to repeat the kind of phone I wanted. “m500.” “Yes, I said the m500.” “M500!!!” But according to the guy on the other end of the email, all I had to really do was tell him “m500″ and everything would be taken care off.

Stupid asshats.

But it is about that time of year when I have to complain about Sprint, again.

Everything was going fine through a few weeks ago: I didn’t talk to them. They didn’t talk to me. I just kept paying my bill and they kept connecting my calls. Then they offered to take 10% off my monthly bill just for abandoning my no-contract ways and signing a new 2 year deal (I like how that sounds as if I was a highly prized free agent). Now, I expected the deal to come with a catch. But, I was wrong. I purposely made two calls so that I could talk to 2 people and verify that I got the same answers. The deal was good.

Then things got bad. I needed a new phone and ordered up a brand new m500. It arrived. I activated it, and all was well. Well, until I realized that the small, outer LCD screen didn’t work. So after one phone call I found out I had to ship it back. After another phone call I had my old phone re-activated. After the phone was shipped, my account was credited, but I had no new phone and my discount was gone. So I wrote to customer support. They told me to “exchange” my old phone. Then when I explained I couldn’t do that, they gave me more bad advice. Then they told me to call a number. The person who answered told me I had to call another number. The person who answered the other number said he would be glad to help me, but that he couldn’t access my account information. So I was transferred to someone else. The volume of that woman’s voice was equal to or less than the volume of static on the line. At least 10 times I said “I can’t understand you.” Apparently she couldn’t understand me either. A week has passed and nothing seems to have happened.

At this point, I’m not sure how many hours I’ve logged calling in for help. But I do know that not a goddamned person who answered the phone can speak English. Including the guy who was clearly American. And hell, I don’t even care if someone in India (or wherever) with an accent answers my phone. But, as with all things Sprint, they embody the likes Michael Bolton and fuck up all the “mundane details.” In this case, the quality of the phone line is pure shit. And being as Sprint is a phone company, I’m pretty sure its their fucking fault.

Let me throw in that the backend systems at Sprint are still pure shit. For some reason, after I am connected to the umpteenth operator, that operator has no idea why I’m calling. Shouldn’t that kind of shit be automatic? For once I’d like to hear, “Hello Mr. Nobrainer, I see you’ve been trying to order a new phone. Let me straighten that out for you.”

ILUSTR8

I’m not sure what lustrating is, but I don’t want anything to do with it.

(more…)

I saw this behind a Honda Civic on my way home from the grocery after an ~11 hr workday:

EFNSLO

Effin’ nice!