Anger is Exhausting

Upon rising this morning I checked my email and thought I might still be dreaming.  The long awaited email from Apple had just hit my inbox.  The iphone 4 's that I reserved 10 days ago had arrived!  I felt like I had won the lottery!  I had to bring my credit card, photo id, and current iphone to the Apple store within 24 hours to claim my right to purchase these phones.  One for me, and one for my daughter for her 17th birthday, which was a week ago.

As soon as humanly possible we took off for the Kahala Mall, on the other side of the island to claim our treasure.  It is Saturday, and traffic was bad.  It took forever to get there.  I was starving and I am not my best with low blood sugar.  I thought that I would get there, get the set up process started, and go fetch food. I wanted my new iPhone 4 more than food.  Parking wasn't any better than the traffic.  It turns out there was some event at the mall today, hula, fashion show, booths, all kinds of stuff and people.  That place was a zoo.

As usual, the Apple store was crowded.  The stage with all the hullabaloo was just outside the door, so it was also loud in there.  After waiting for like a hundred years, well, maybe only 10 minutes, Mike came out to help us.  He went behind those magic silver doors and emerged with 2 perfect brick shaped white boxes.  I think I started to drool at this point.  They were so close, I could have reached out at grabbed them.  Mike struggled to find a signal, ironic how even in their own store they have to struggle for those bars, and brought up my account.  His magic iPod brought up a foul message - "User is a business customer and is blocked from making upgrades at this location.  Please contact a business care representative for assistance."  Or some such nonsense like that

  and then my head exploded .....

Seriously?  Seriously?  An AT&T business customer with multiple lines gets WORSE service than a consumer account?  Because I give them MORE they offer me LESS?   Inconceivable, and that word does mean what I think it does!  In all the racket I dialed a quick 611 on my outdated, slow as molasses, iPhone 3G.

    NOTE:  Before I updated the software on my 3G I was very happy with it's performance.  With the latest software update it is so slow I want to drop kick it while waiting for a text message to send.  It will ring at least 4 times before my blue tooth recognizes it and I nearly miss calls if I want to answer with the ear piece. I think getting 3G users to update their phone with the 4 software was a giant marketing move.  Get people to fall in love with the new features, like folders, and multitasking, then slow their phones down so they can't wait to get the new iPhone 4.  If that software worked well, I would have been content to wait for the frenzy to die down and then upgrade.  That's an A+ for the marketing staff.  I took the bait and swallowed it whole, even with the manipulation plot clear in my mind.

The poor guy at AT&T that answered my call.  Low blood sugar and high expectations shattered does not a happy Wendy make.  While the kids went to fetch some Arby's, I explained, complained, and drained every resource available.  Could I switch my plan from business to consumer?  How would that effect my rate plan?  Was it worth it?  Could I find an AT&T store on the island with any iPhone 4's in stock?  That would be an exercise in futility.  In the end there were two choices - buy the phones at $699 each or order them directly from AT&T and wait, ANOTHER 7 + business days.  By now I had enough food in me to realize that price was ridiculous, even for a gadget freak like me.  So, kicking, screaming, whining, and crying, I succumbed to the rules, and ordered the phones.  All my  expressive anger earned me free Fed Ex shipping, no small thing when you live in Hawaii, and any activation fees, and other such nonsense charges waived. I walked into that mall full of anticipation, and I walked out angry and disappointed.  

I still don't understand why AT&T punishes their best customers by giving them the least service opportunities.  It would have been nice if the Apple employee who took my reservation for the phones would have told me that I couldn't buy them from them if I was a business customer.  It still would have been ridiculous, but at least I wouldn't have waited 10 extra days, and wasted all my time and gas driving across the island today. The nice young man on the phone, who earned his meager pay and then some today, explained that the Apple stores are just not set up to handle the needs of business customers.  No JOKE!@  All I NEEDED was a couple of phones - how hard is that??? 

I'm still angry, and it's exhausting.