"You can hear a pin drop"

"You can hear a pin drop"

Mostly because you're no longer on the phone.

So, I spent my entire drive home talking on the phone to Sprint. Disconnected once. Routed back to the main customer service queue once by an advanced tech support person.

So far today, I've spent two hours with them on the phone (which I will NEVER get back,) been disconnected thrice, been promised that they'd fix my problem repeatedly (promises as empty as those of the current administration) aggressively worked to refrain from screaming or cursing, cried twice, and accomplished probably squat. I'm to go to the Sprint store tomorrow morning, to ask for service.

They are going to a.) offer to replace my phone if I pay the $50 shipping fee, whence I will receive yet another remanufactured Treo 650, which won't work, b.) treat me as being worth lower than dirt ('cause that's how Sprint is in their retail stores,) and c.) accomplish nothing.

You see, the most demeaning and de-humanzing retail experience that there is on the planet is to have to go to a Sprint store (at least one in Houston, although I have experience at Sprint stores in Fort Myers and Dallas, and they were no better, only less heavily trafficked.)

You go into a Sprint store, and some heavily coiffed and gelled person is standing at a podium near the door. They insist that you must sign in. The make a great show of signing you in, and the person who walked in right behind you.

Then, the coiffed person has to run and talk to someone - usually another co-worker. Maybe a necessary break is required. Perhaps a donut. At which point, the podium is untended. For five minutes, maybe ten.

During this time, twenty-two new people come in the door. Unimpeded by the sign-in process, they blaze past your patient waiting self and approach a representative directly, frequently interrupting said representative who's mid-client.

Your wait time, if you allow yourself to be wrangled by the podium hair gel, is increased by at least a half hour.

Then, you wait for the person who's pulled up your name in the podium queue on the in-store computer network (which they don't pay attention to when a blazer is knocking on their terminal.) You have 2.9 seconds to arise from your patient seating position and RUN like your ass was on fire over there before they cancel you out and call the next name.

If your device requires service, then you're given a repair tag and invited to come back "in about 90 minutes," which means next Thursday, week.

They won't explain service plans to you in any meaningful way, and the published materials reveal nothing of the restrictions or requirements.

They can't explain anything to you, only look at their Windows 2000 environment, bitch to the other representatives that all the computer terminals are again locked out, and they can tell you to please wait while they try to figure out what to do. Then, they tell you to call customer service.

When you call customer service, you wait. You wait until your eyes dry out. Each representative you speak to requires that you explain the entire problem to them again, and then, even if there is a history of concerns expressed, you are required to patiently wait while they go through the identical traps that the other six representatives before them (whom you would have had a complete conversation with had Sprint's shitty network not dropped the call, ending your association with the representative you've just invested some 20 minutes cultivating.)

Then, they'll "transfer" you to someone else, who requires that you go through the whole story again. Or, who just transfers you back to the begining of the customer service queue.

Which will then disconnect you.

Lather, rinse, repeat.