jianantonic | Equally amazed and pissed of with Sprint Customer Service

So my new phone came. Yay!

Except...it doesn't work.

Brand new, $600 piece of functionless plastic.

I walked to the Sprint store around the corner to see if I was just doing something wrong (a very likely scenario), and to get their help. I was the only one in the store, and even though there were two employees, every time the phone rang, the girl "helping" me would pick up the phone and make me wait while she dealt with someone else. While patiently waiting for her, I heard this end of her conversation with a customer:

"Yes, we do have that phone. Are you looking to get one today? Let me check and see if you're eligible for an upgrade now...Yes! You are. I can activate that phone for you today for just the upgrade fee."

"Oh, we only have it in white, but I do have black covers."

"The other stores in the area have it, too. I could drive over and get one for you -- would you like me to do that?"

"Okay, great! I'll see you later today."

Good customer service, right? Well.

She told me I'd have to call Sprint's customer service line to activate my phone, and I have to do that from a phone other than my cell phone. I explained that I only have this phone. "Don't you have an office? Can't you do it from work?" Okay, she doesn't know that I'm in the middle of a very frustrating stretch of unemployment and job searching, so she probably didn't mean for that to come off like salt in my wounds, but, bitch, it's 2pm on a Monday and I'm in here with fresh-out-of-the-shower wet hair. DOES IT LOOK LIKE I HAVE AN OFFICE? Maybe I got fired for making too many goddamn personal phone calls.

So after exhausting the many possibilities of other types of phones I could possibly have access to, she finally offers up the in-store phone. But unlike every other time I've gone in there and gone through this, she just handed me the phone and had me deal with the people -- every other time, the person in the store makes the call for me. But she kept grabbing the phone from me while I was on the call! And I'd be all "Hang on, I can't do that right now, I don't have the phone in my hands..." and bitch just didn't fucking get the hint. Finally after I tried doing all the things I was instructed to do, and they didn't work, she took the phone from me and started talking to the woman at customer service. She spoke for all of three seconds, said thanks, and then hung up. Um, what?

"Unfortunately, your phone is defective. You're going to have to exchange it."

UGH. Okay, that's a pain, but shit happens, I guess I understand, whatever. I didn't get pissy. Until this next thing.

She tells me that they don't have it and I have to go to one of the other stores, either Hall Blvd. or Tanasbourne. I ask if they're walking distance, because I don't have a car, also I have somewhere to be at 3:30, so I'm kind of in a hurry. She tells me "you'll have to get on the freeway..."

Okay, NO, I won't. Hall Blvd is literally three blocks away. NO FREEWAY NECESSARY. But WHERE on Hall Blvd is this store? She punches some things into a map, says it's "too far to walk" and tells me "they're open until 7 if that helps."

First of all, biotch, I'll be the judge of how far I can walk. Second of all, how come you're not offering to drive over there and pick it up for me like you did for the woman on the phone? Second of all, thanks for telling me that you went ahead and deactivated my other phone. So I have no phone now, no time to get to the other store, and I'm boarding a plane at 5am tomorrow. FRUSTRATION.

I'm going to ride my bike to therapy and then bike to the Hall Blvd store, which is only 4 miles from here. That is so not too far to walk or bike -- but I WOULD like to call first to see if they even have what I need so that it's not a wild goose chase. Because I already worked out today and I'm going to be pissed if I ride my bike 9 miles out of the way (here-therapy-store-here) for nothing. And Z has the car in Eugene all day. And I hope I wrote down the directions correctly because it's not like I can use my phone to look them up if I get lost. Seriously, fuck this bullshit. What a stressful day.