Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Cell phone trials

My company issued me a cell phone years ago, which I rarely (but occasionally) use for work purposes, but mostly use for personal purposes. The company has a 'plan' so we have unlimited minutes and I don't receive a bill or anything.

Last week the display screen started acting funny. Sometimes when I flipped the phone open the screen would have lines running through it or would only partially display. If I opened and closed it a few times quickly I found that it would often resolve.

Then last week when I flipped it open the display screen just came up white. Uh oh...
Because the majority of the phone's functionality comes from the display screen, this became a big problem. I can't access my stored phone numbers. I can't access voice mail messages. I can't access missed calls. I can't turn the ringer off. The only thing I can do is dial numbers manually and receive calls.

So I contacted the company cell phone guy and explained the situation. He tried contacting our rep at the carrier but learned she was out that day. He called the next day and didn't reach her so he left a voice mail for her. No response for a couple of days, so today he called into the general customer service line for assistance. It was decided that I would go to a local retailer and they would activate a new phone for me and basically 'charge it to the company's plan'. If only it were that simple.

When I got to the retail location they said I needed 2 out of 3 pieces of info: my phone number, a PIN, or the social security number of the administrator who set up the account. Jeez... of course I only had my phone number. I had no clue about a PIN, and the administrator who set up the corporate account left the company 3 years ago. They said that if I wanted to purchase the phone outright they could pull the SIM card from my old phone and activate the new one with it. Something told me not to do that.

So when I returned home I notified my company's cell phone guy and he apologized for all my trials. He said he would handle it. About 20 minutes later he emailed me saying he'd ordered the phone and requested express delivery, so I should have my new phone in a few days.

Situations like this are why I resist becoming dependent on technology.

Crush du Jour: Evan Lysacek

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here's my funny cell phone story. When I worked in a State office in RI the new administration came in and requested all cell phones be turned into administration. The admin director said at her previous job in the state, they only had 2 cell phones for 300 people.

So all of us in I.T. (Four of us that had cell phone, we two systems guys, the director, and the web admin) turned ours in with protest.

A couple days later I'm talking to the advance director and he's got boxes for new Motorola Q's. I asked if I.T. was getting any. His response, no. I asked if they realized that I.T. got all the server broadcast messages on those cell phones. So when something broke we wouldn't know about it until next day.

A few days later there were new Q's on our desks.

Bob said...

I am the anti-cell phone.
I have one.
It's in my car for emergencies.
It doesn't text or voicemail or surf the net; it does take pictures.
I don't even need that!

cb said...

Time for an iPhone.