There's a problem on the screen of my new Sprint phone. I bought it at Best Buy but they won't help me because it's within the manufacturer's warranty. Sprint Customer Care over the phone doesn't want to help me either, although they do give me the names and addresses of all the Sprint stores in the area that can. Great! But it's impossible to get anyone on the phone at any of the stores. It's all routed through the same system and, if you're lucky, you get a voice mail. Well I know there are real bodies working there! So I go to the new Hollywood store in my old neighborhood. Open! Great! But the technicians who can help me all leave at 6PM. But you're open until 8PM, I say. Blank stares. Drooling. Fine, I say, I'll try to make it to one of the stores on the list during that key 10AM-6PM crunch, the WORST time in the day for 99% of us to take care of getting crap like this done. But alright, I'll make it happen. La de da, he skips to the Sprint store on San Fernando feeling very cocky and sure of himself. It's 2PM, nothing can possibly go wrong! They will help me, they will replace my phone, they will take me to their lush green room to wait and sip cappuccino and look at the British Vogue magazines they'll have strewn on the coffee table for just such a wonderful customer as myself (since 1998!). Sorry sir, we don't do repairs... But the man on the phone... Yeah, he was wrong. Try Glendale or Pasadena. What about Hollywood? I live there, I was just there the other day. I don't know sir, here's a list of our stores. Fine! Resigning myself to take care of this over the weekend, I finish my work day, go home, and just wallow in self-pity. But not before taking that Handy List the Sprint man gave me so I can call the Hollywood store and find out exactly when the technicians will be there, every nuance of their every move, when they take lunch, where they take lunch and for how long. Do they smoke? Do they have kids? Do their kids play soccer? If not soccer, what sport? And when are their practices, when will the technician have to leave work to go to his kids soccer (or other team sport, this technician's son or daughter being a young gregarious chap uninterested in the lonely sports of track, swimming or archery) game? Anyway, so I consult the list only to find that the Hollywood number is not even on there, the store being so brand-spanking new. But, this is a large corporation, right? The stores that actually have service and repair are bound to have similar schedules in each of their stores, right? So I call the Glendale office the Sprint man said had service. No answer. Phone disconnected. I hear there's a big soccer tournament in Glendale. Could be why. So I call Pasadena. Residents of Pasadena hate team sports. I know this to be true. It rings. Something... wait? Is it? Yes, that is actually a human being on the phone. I told you, they HATE soccer. HATE it. So the guy asks me how he can help me. I don't know where to begin. I pause, long enough that if this kid on the other end was inpatient enough, he would have hung up. But he doesn't. He waits for me to answer, to say that no one has answered one simple question, the thing that I have been trying to get answered for over a week now. Sir, do your technicians work on the weekend? A pause, and then this human being answers me but now with an answer... with a question of his own: what's wrong with your phone? I'm actually surprised that someone cares about me or my phone so instead of arguing that that's beside the point, I just want to know his frickin' technician's schedule, I actually tell him the problem with my phone. In detail. At least I start to until he cuts me off to put me on hold. And not a welcome, fancy hold music hold, a SILENT hold, the kind of hold that can drive you mad with anticipation (did I get disconnected, are they ever coming back, who am I, why did i call in the first place, mommy!). But he returns. Yes, we can look at it. But it may have to be replaced. I didn't have the heart to tell the guy that he was not the first person to tell me that my phone would have to be replaced, that the GIANT HUGE ORANGE MUTANT BLOB ON MY SCREEN wasn't normal. He was actually about the 7th person. Not far down the list, but still, this is not news. So I repeat my original question and enunciated well with the diction I learned from high school drama class: Do your repair technicians work on Saturday and, if so, what are there hours? Perhaps it was this Sprint Phone Man's turn to be startled. He answers me. With real hard facts. Indeed, with the answer I'd been searching for. Yes, he says. 10AM-6:30PM he says. Alright I say. I hang up. Wow. After a week of searching, after dozens of numbers called, after lists both online and in my hands culled through for information, I finally know exactly what time the technicians at the Pasadena Sprint Store on Colorado Blvd are supposed to be at work. And in case you're wondering, none of them have children and none of them spoke.
If only I didn't hate driving to Pasadena. Wish me luck at the Hollywood store tomorrow.
