Preface: Happy New Year! You're just in time to join the count down of blogs. I've decided to go out in style, featuring 16 blogs, representing 16 years of blogging. I'm sad to say that some of the posts have NOT aged well. I'm updating posts so it improves the story while preserving the madness.
I picked this particular blog because I have yet to forget this incident. Every word still rings true... which I am ashamed to admit. I am not proud and hope I have evolved since this event. From July 2008. Here is #13 in the countdown: Can You Hear Me NOW?
If you read about a woman getting arrested in a Horizon store, don't worry--it was just me, chivalrously standing up for the wife and her crappy new Horizon Phone.
It all started with a zillion dollar phone bill from the wife's phone carrier, US Hell-u-lar. The wife decided to jump onto my carrier/contract when her contract with Hell-u-lar was over. There was nothing "wrong" with her carrier. It was just that almost everyone in our circle was on Horizon. (Back in those days, you paid per text, per time of day, per everything. Texting Horizon to Horizon was free.)
Contract complete, she went to Horizon, purchased a new phone and jumped on my plan. Perfect.
Not so perfect. The wife did not realize a new contract was started and there was an early termination piece related when switching from Hell-u-lar.
Read.
The.
Fine.
Print.
No judgment. I don't read the fine print. Now I know why I should at least skim the babbling.
I already had her on my plan. Horizon had already set up her new phone so everything was ready to go. So, one way or another, the wife would be paying to cancel a phone line on Hell-u-lar or Horizon. She paid the moola, grumbling all the way.
Moola gone, she marched forward with her new phone.
Unfortunately, her new Horizon phone had horrific reception on the new-to-her Horizon line. No one could understand her when she called. It was like she was drunk, under water. Talk about bitter, party of one. How this could be, neither of us understood, but we understood we could not understand her when she called anyone.
I could see she was already regretting her move to my contract. Yikes.
After a few days, she gave up. She went to the store to inquire about her phone. Before I knew it, she was home. They told her there was nothing wrong with her phone or reception. I asked if they had done anything. She said no.
After a few more days of really shitty phone reception, she took me and her new phone to the Horizon store. I stayed in the background, wandering aimlessly.
At first, the associates were of no help. In fact, I would say they ignored her. Maybe because she already had a phone. Who knows why. I mean, it wasn't very busy and the workers were plentiful. She was kind and patient.
I felt the beginning stages of stink eye developing in my head.
Tick... tick... tick... time creeped on.... I'm not kidding when I say it was twenty minutes before anyone made eye contact with her. Once she finally got their attention, she explained the issue of how her phone's reception was shit. She noted she had been there earlier in the week.
She was calm. She was clear. She was concise yet detailed.
What do you think they did?
The two looked-twelve-year-old associates listened to the wife's complaint. I swear I heard one of them roll their eyes. With a sigh and a condescending smile, one of them asked her for her phone. Both of them looked at the phone, flipped it this way and that way, open and closed the phone....
...and then, standing next to each other... the one associate called the other associate using her phone.
Hello?
Hello!
They hung up. Both pronounced the call had been "crystal clear." They handed her the phone and turned to walk away.
The wife was in tears.
I had been watching these two nimrods long enough. Stink eye in full bloom, I took things into my own hands. I grabbed the phone from the wife, marched outside, stood in front of the store and called
some friends who are also on the Horizon plan.
They couldn't really understand
me and they sounded like shit to me. Then, standing in the same place, I called them from my cell
phone. They could hear me with no problem and I could hear them.
Experiment over.
I went into store and told the wife to give me EVERYTHING she had about her
phone--from the box to the receipts. She had wasted thirty minutes of her life. I was not going to have her waste one more millisecond. I took that pile of crap and headed toward victory.
I wasn't nice. I wasn't assertive. I was a bitter asshole, party of one. I marched right up to that Customer Service desk. I held up her shitty phone in one hand and in a very loud voice announced what a piece of shit her phone and reception was. I then held up MY phone in the other hand and curtly explained how reception was just fine on my phone.
I am here to tell you every person in that store stopped what they were doing and turned toward the counter. They knew...
They knew the poor Customer Service lady (NOT one of the two teeny bopper nimrods) was now my hostage.
I knew it wasn't her fault but with my irritation level being a 10 out of 10, she didn't have a prayer. When the one of the teenyboppers approached the counter, I loudly proclaimed, "And, I want NOTHING to do with him!"
He backed off and went back to the sales floor.
I barked out my angry story of how I had talked the wife into this stupid service, that her previous service was a billion times better, that her previous phone was better, that Horizon had spent more time ignoring us than helping us, that she brought her phone in and staff was basically patronizing to her but of no help. I once again held the phone up in the lady's face..... I made it quite clear I didn't want to hear about testing the reception or about how the box didn't have the UPS code or how this or that....I was DEMANDING a new phone. A phone that worked.
The Customer Service lady stared at me. After a few seconds, she asks: "did your friend change phone carriers?"
"Yes," I answered, quizzical--what the hell could this have to do
with anything?
She continued, "And, did she get a new Horizon number?"
Where is she going with this?
"No," I coldly replied. "Why would she change phone numbers?"
"Well, maybe your friend is having
trouble with her phone because of the phone number being from a different
carrier---"
I tell you what. I cut that lady off so fast and so loudly she
will probably need therapy for three years to get over it. I almost jumped over the counter and shoved
that phone right up her ASS.
Little veins popping out of my temples, I yelled, "BOTH carriers using the same friggin' cell towers!"
It was at this point she went and got a new phone.
You better believe I watched that lady like a hawk. I made
sure she wasn't shoving the old phone in a new box. I made sure she had a new
phone out of a sealed box. It
was all going well until she couldn't get the wife's contact list out of the old
phone into the new phone.
Seems the wife's phone is a really new product so no one knows how to do anything with them. Before, we could get no attention. Suddenly, three people are working on
this project. I made it clear I would not be leaving without a transfer of the
contact list, all the while watching the phone to make sure there was no switch
back to the old phone.
With much sweating and a wee bit of anxiety, the lady finally figured out a way to get the numbers on
the phone. I warned her that I best not be charged for this action; she assured me I wouldn't be charged for anything today. She handed me the new phone, accompanying box and receipt.
I looked down at the receipt. I felt a little ball of anger building inside. I then held the piece of paper in her face and roared, "THEN WHY DOES IT SAY I HAVE TO ACCEPT THE $1.99 CHARGE RIGHT HERE ON THIS PAPER?"
She swallowed and promised it wouldn't be on the bill but if it were, it would be credited.
Credited? Why do I need to be credited if there isn't going to be any charges?
This is where I snapped. I looked at the receipt even closer and see a charge for $14.95. "THIS STUPID $14.95 BILL BETTER NOT SHOW UP ON MY BILL,
EITHER!"
I think she piddled on herself.
She slide the new phone across the counter and meekly asked me to make some
calls so I could test it out. She suggested I go outside
but I assured her that the phone would work right where I was standing or I'd
be handing it right back.
I think it was her ploy to get me out of the store so they could lock the door behind me.
I stood my ground. I handed the phone to the wife and then called her using my phone.
"Can you hear me now?"
Wrong carrier, correction question.
Thankfully for all involved, she really could hear me and I could hear her. I smiled, hung up and thanked the woman for the new phone. I then grabbed all the wife's belongings and left, new phone in hand.
I am happy to report the wife is much happier with the new phone, which is a very good thing for me and for Horizon. Tell you what, tho--if that damned bill comes and there are charges that are wrong, I WILL drive my car right through their show room.
Call it what you will. Call me wrong. Call me bitter. Just don't call me on Horizon.
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Follow up:
Yes, there were charges on the bills. (You have got to be kidding me.)
Thank you, Universe, the charges were then credited.
No need to drive my car through the showroom window.
And yes, they admitted the two companies use the same cell phone towers.
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