The Flip Side of Sunrise

I had a close call this morning. Overslept my alarms. Woke up at 8:02 am. This is usually not a problem, but since I’m parking on the street, I usually have to be out of the apartment by 8 so that there is no chance of my car getting ticketed. Fortunately, the meter maids or whatever hadn’t come by. But it gave me quite the scare, and wasn’t exactly how I envisioned my day starting, especially given the fact that I had gone to sleep early to catch up on rest. Thems the breaks.

In the three and a half weeks (though it feels nowhere near as long) now that I’ve been at my new job, I’ve experienced a great deal of adversity. Normally, I crumble in the face of any challenge, perceived or real (as anyone close to me, in a moment of honesty, will tell you). But something over the past couple of months has steeled my resolve. I’ve started to work out again, confronted my own insecurities, tried to fight for what I want. It’s not easy, but that’s no reason to ever give up, at least not anymore. This is overly introspective, and rather vaugue, but it does, I think, feel somewhat good to get it down on paper, to put concrete thoughts behind words behind the nebulous idea. And I suppose that since I don’t post often anymore, few people other than Nina, Venus de Kilo, and TM will read this, so perhaps it will give the three of you some joy to see me maturing, and to appreciate what I have in each of you.

I was thinking “gag me with a spoon.” But that wouldn’t be the right response. Sure, it’s sappy and all, but it feels right. So deal.

Yeah, I’ve kinda disappeared for a while. It wasn’t any decision on my part, it just kind of happened. But now, now I am rather frustrated enough to post again. What’s the problem? Verizon. Verizon Wireless to be specific. I’ve taken good care of my phone, paid my bills on time, everything. I’ve dropped my phone, twice, in the year and a half I’ve had it. The last time was a couple of months ago. Even before that, however, the screen would turn black while dialing, or worse, while talking. Why worse? Because the screen turning black means that the phone’s sensor, somewhere inside in the dank electronic inner workings, has decided that the flip part of my flip phone has been unflipped. That was something I could deal with; after all, it wasn’t a regular thing and after a few minutes, it would stop doing that. But then… oh but then…

For the past week or so, my phone has been receiving static. I can still hear other people talking just fine. They, on the other hand, cannot hear a single word that I say. This, in tandem with the broken flip sensor, makes my phone wholly and utterly useless. So I called up Verizon Wireless today. Figured that customer service was a big deal to them, and seeing as I’m entering my fourth year of service with them, they might cut me some slack seeing as my contract isn’t up for another half a year, and let me renew my contract now. No such luck. Apparently, because I pay $60 a month, they’re excited to allow me to upgrade my phone (which anyone can do), but I’m not allowed to get $100 off (which only renewing customers can get). So I’m faced with a dilemma: I can pay $50, wait for them to order another cell phone of the same model and get it to me, and then wait out the rest of contract and probably not renew with Verizon Wireless (new motto: “With customer service like ours, who needs customers?”). Or I can cut the crap, tell them I’m leaving them, let them charge me what they will (probably $150) and be on my way over to Cingular, where I might be treated as a valuable customer.

Now, I’m slightly pissed at myself because I signed a two year contract bundled with a phone with a one year warranty. I think that’s a shady business practice. I can understand selling a computer with a one year warranty; the customer isn’t paying for your services through the computer, he’s paying for the computer. I know that the cell phone companies subsidize the phones through the contracts, but do you really want to piss people off and have them sign a two year contract with a phone that will last for a good year? It’s great for profits (they subsidize this phone with a two year contract and then get full price on a second phone in the second year), but I think it’s pretty shitty business to do.
Interestingly, this is one of the things that drives a lot of companies crazy. Once you get large enough, one customer doesn’t mean a lot. But how do you make sure you keep customers if every individual customer isn’t important (after all, it doesn’t add a lot of marginal cost for Verizon to keep me as a customer, and it doesn’t cost them a lot to lose me as a customer (though that is, basically, all marginal revenue)).