T-Minus Day, Stomach Hair, Pantsed in Ramadi
In an effort to maintain a semblance of talent, I’ve decided to make regular updates to this blog, even if I’ve got nothing to say. Don’t fear, however, because tonight I do have something to say. Whether or not it’s funny or full of supposed talent is up to you to decide. Try not to think too hard on it.
For starters, it’s getting closer to T-Minus T-Mobile Day, which is July 11th (or, the day the new iPhone comes out), when I will be officially switching over to ATT. My journey with T-Mobile has been documented not only by me in previous blog posts (Sorry, I don’t have them linked here – you might try the archives or just taking my word for it, Captain Doubty) as well as by T-Mobile themselves.
It’s a long story, but the brief version is that I once called so many times in the span of a week, with such gusto (or annoyance) that I am convinced they “red flagged” me so that every subsequent time I called, they knew that I was a head case who needed to be handled with kid gloves. What led me to this paranoia, you might ask? It wasn’t Crypto-Cronic-California weed, though it’s been known to have worse side effects. No, it was the time I called and instantly was transferred to a sweet, Southern-sounding woman named Sandy who was ultra-polite and nice and would “kindly walk me through whatever I needed taking care of for the day”. My face on the other end of the line looked like Neo’s in the beginning of The Matrix when he gets a call from Morpheus telling him to look across the room at the agents talking to his boss. It gave me a cold chill down my spine, and not one of supreme victory over the phone gods, but one that screamed, “Jesus, this is what I’ve become? A dickhead customer?”
Now when I call, I’m way too nice, to the point where I never solve the problem I originally call to complain about. In fact, they now take advantage of me, probably to pay back some of my earlier bullying. For example, I called Customer Service (not deserving of capitals, by the way) when the first iPhone came out to see how far T-Mobile would be willing to go to keep my business. They transferred me to a guy named Burt who sounded like he was a UFC fighter from Queens.
Burt: So, what do you need?
Me: What are you guys willing to do to keep me as a customer?
Burt: Why you wanna leave?
Me: To get the new iPhone.
Burt: Oh, I see. So a new fancy phone comes out and you just wanna bail on us? Is that it?
Me: I wouldn’t call it “bailing,” since I’ve paid you roughly $5000 in bills since I joined; it’s not like you’re a friend with cancer whom I never talk to anymore.
Burt: Fine. You can go. We got plenty of other customers. Millions of ‘em.
Me: Are you supposed to be this brutally honest?
Burt: Yep. It’s our new policy. It’s the T-Mobile “We’re the cheapest option, so suck it” plan.
Me: Gotcha.
Fast-forward to today, and I get the same treatment today as I really, for sure this time,
want to switch over to ATT, this time because the iPhone is cheaper. I get Denise on the
line, who makes a marked change from friendly to bitchy as soon as I tell her I want to switch. She literally sounded like a little kid who just found out you were having a sleep over the same night he was and that you also invited most of the same kids: “Oh, you’re gonna leave us after all this time, huh? Fine. Be that way.”
+++
I’m on my extended, truly kick-ass summer vacation from teaching and so far Week One was everything I’d hoped it would be and more. I’m in training for my first Triathlon in September, so I spent many hours on the bike, in the pool and on the boardwalk flexing for the ladies. Except, I can never translate the expression on so many of their faces as they gaze at my stomach. It could be one of these three things:
“Boy, he’s got a lot of work to do to justify taking his shirt off in public.”
“I didn’t know chest hair also turned into belly hair, but just in a different color.”
“Is…..that……sweat?!?”
You just don’t care, and that’s how you pull it off, in case you were wondering. But obviously I do care, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing about it on a Sunday evening. Ah, the musings of the single-parented male.
+++
On a more serious note, I’ve finished what is now the third book I’ve read about Fallujah (I know – does the fun ever stop!?!) and I’m back in my September 12th mindset that I need to join the Armed Forces (justified capitalization), only I can’t decide if it is as a Warrior or Analyst. I know, I know – you are going to say that’s like wanting to either be a garbage man, or a man who eats garbage for a living. I just don’t think I could hack it out there in the field as an infantry fighter (Is that redundant?). I’m more of a thinking man’s man, and hence the analyzing of terrorist cell communications for the CIA or something. And just the term “thinking man’s man” would get me pantsed on the streets of Ramadi for just saying it out loud, so I think that settles that. Plus, my desire for combat would not be a pure one, like why so many brave men signed up on September 12th (to prevent Iraqis from invading America and stealing their blond girlfriends), but would be a simple desire to be able to say at a cocktail party that I could snipe a fool from 300 yards out. I am aware that there are Marines who truly signed up for that exact same reason. Does that make it wrong? Not really.
For starters, it’s getting closer to T-Minus T-Mobile Day, which is July 11th (or, the day the new iPhone comes out), when I will be officially switching over to ATT. My journey with T-Mobile has been documented not only by me in previous blog posts (Sorry, I don’t have them linked here – you might try the archives or just taking my word for it, Captain Doubty) as well as by T-Mobile themselves.
It’s a long story, but the brief version is that I once called so many times in the span of a week, with such gusto (or annoyance) that I am convinced they “red flagged” me so that every subsequent time I called, they knew that I was a head case who needed to be handled with kid gloves. What led me to this paranoia, you might ask? It wasn’t Crypto-Cronic-California weed, though it’s been known to have worse side effects. No, it was the time I called and instantly was transferred to a sweet, Southern-sounding woman named Sandy who was ultra-polite and nice and would “kindly walk me through whatever I needed taking care of for the day”. My face on the other end of the line looked like Neo’s in the beginning of The Matrix when he gets a call from Morpheus telling him to look across the room at the agents talking to his boss. It gave me a cold chill down my spine, and not one of supreme victory over the phone gods, but one that screamed, “Jesus, this is what I’ve become? A dickhead customer?”
Now when I call, I’m way too nice, to the point where I never solve the problem I originally call to complain about. In fact, they now take advantage of me, probably to pay back some of my earlier bullying. For example, I called Customer Service (not deserving of capitals, by the way) when the first iPhone came out to see how far T-Mobile would be willing to go to keep my business. They transferred me to a guy named Burt who sounded like he was a UFC fighter from Queens.
Burt: So, what do you need?
Me: What are you guys willing to do to keep me as a customer?
Burt: Why you wanna leave?
Me: To get the new iPhone.
Burt: Oh, I see. So a new fancy phone comes out and you just wanna bail on us? Is that it?
Me: I wouldn’t call it “bailing,” since I’ve paid you roughly $5000 in bills since I joined; it’s not like you’re a friend with cancer whom I never talk to anymore.
Burt: Fine. You can go. We got plenty of other customers. Millions of ‘em.
Me: Are you supposed to be this brutally honest?
Burt: Yep. It’s our new policy. It’s the T-Mobile “We’re the cheapest option, so suck it” plan.
Me: Gotcha.
Fast-forward to today, and I get the same treatment today as I really, for sure this time,
want to switch over to ATT, this time because the iPhone is cheaper. I get Denise on the
line, who makes a marked change from friendly to bitchy as soon as I tell her I want to switch. She literally sounded like a little kid who just found out you were having a sleep over the same night he was and that you also invited most of the same kids: “Oh, you’re gonna leave us after all this time, huh? Fine. Be that way.”
+++
I’m on my extended, truly kick-ass summer vacation from teaching and so far Week One was everything I’d hoped it would be and more. I’m in training for my first Triathlon in September, so I spent many hours on the bike, in the pool and on the boardwalk flexing for the ladies. Except, I can never translate the expression on so many of their faces as they gaze at my stomach. It could be one of these three things:
“Boy, he’s got a lot of work to do to justify taking his shirt off in public.”
“I didn’t know chest hair also turned into belly hair, but just in a different color.”
“Is…..that……sweat?!?”
You just don’t care, and that’s how you pull it off, in case you were wondering. But obviously I do care, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing about it on a Sunday evening. Ah, the musings of the single-parented male.
+++
On a more serious note, I’ve finished what is now the third book I’ve read about Fallujah (I know – does the fun ever stop!?!) and I’m back in my September 12th mindset that I need to join the Armed Forces (justified capitalization), only I can’t decide if it is as a Warrior or Analyst. I know, I know – you are going to say that’s like wanting to either be a garbage man, or a man who eats garbage for a living. I just don’t think I could hack it out there in the field as an infantry fighter (Is that redundant?). I’m more of a thinking man’s man, and hence the analyzing of terrorist cell communications for the CIA or something. And just the term “thinking man’s man” would get me pantsed on the streets of Ramadi for just saying it out loud, so I think that settles that. Plus, my desire for combat would not be a pure one, like why so many brave men signed up on September 12th (to prevent Iraqis from invading America and stealing their blond girlfriends), but would be a simple desire to be able to say at a cocktail party that I could snipe a fool from 300 yards out. I am aware that there are Marines who truly signed up for that exact same reason. Does that make it wrong? Not really.
posted by Smidge at 11:24 PM
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