The sad thing is that I'm getting used to this

So I got my new shiny Blackberry on Friday and tried to activate it only to find out that there was no line listed on my account due to the fact that I didn't get the required $30/month Blackberry Data Plan. I guess I wasn't THAT surprised as I figured that $15/month for data was too good to be true. Either way, that was more than I wanted to pay per month so after stewing for a while (and what a fun person I was for THOSE few hours). I decided that I would keep the plan but return the Blackberry Pearl for a Samsung Rant (the phone I got Pam).

So I called Sprint and they said that I could return it but I'd have to wait 1-2 billing cycles to get my money back and then I'd have to pay cash to get a new phone or I could take it to a store to exchange it. Great! We have a Sprint store in Beaver Dam. He failed to mention that it had to be a 'corporate' store and not a 3rd party vendor. The nearest corp stores are 40 miles away. So then Pam and I got into it as to whether she even wants to go with Sprint anymore and then whether she needs a cell phone. So I pretty much said "OK, I'm getting an iPhone then". Then she was all like "Weeeeellll, maybe we'll pay the $30/month" for the data plan :) Figures. Anything to deny me something new and shiny (I keed, I keed ;-D )

So great, I have a Blackberry now, but Sprint is having all types of problems porting the numbers and activating the phones. Because of the porting process my fucking Verizon phone doesn't work so I'm SOL right now. Actually I'm typing this whole thing while on hold w/ Sprint while they see what they can do right now. I'm hoping we can get this done NOW because I want to get the rest of the cool shit on the Blackberry like the Google apps and Remember the Milk. Currently I'm being transferred to a supervisor....yay progress!

Other than that I had a great weekend. Of course by great I mean that I had to do a shitload of yardwork, had the horseshit go on with Sprint, have a cranky post-op kid screaming about her throat and keeping us up at all hours of the night and driving us nuts, and it was cold and rainy. So yeah, not really that great. The only good thing I did of note was finish Superhuman difficulty on Resistance 2...which will be nothing compared to the "get 10000 kills" in Competitive mode (I'm at 95 kills right now and averaging about 5 per match :( )

This whole thing with Sprint gets me to another point. What the fuck happened to customer service? I don't mean with individuals in general because all the people I've dealt with at Sprint have been decent, but I mean as a company as a whole. We've had fuckups with Westbury Bank, FNBO, and now Sprint in the last few months. Like I said with Sprint the main problem is that it didn't even mention the Blackberry plan on the site and I think that's the root of all the problems here. On top of that, with other places you get the feeling that most people couldn't give a shit about whether you're happy with a particular company's service. With this economy you'd think people would give more of a shit because it would be so easy to replace them. You'd think companies would be falling all over themselves to give you awesome service because they're competing for less dollars. However, they don't.

Of course a lot of the problem is endemic of the industry. For cell phones in particular I've been with 4 different providers (PrimeCo, US Cell, Verizon, and now Sprint) and have not had a particularly great time with any of them. The only other national provider in the area is AT&T and if I go to them after my Sprint contract I guarantee that the service will still suck. Why should any one company do a good job at customer service when they all suck?

Update: My phone still doesn't work. They've escalated it to another team. However, they did get Pam's working so that's kind of cool. Hopefully they can get me up and running soon.