I Fought The Phone and the Phone Won

Every day that I work and usually the day after I work at the Bookstore, I like to slip down to Hell's storage area, which we will call "the 4th floor", and take a nap. We are not talking luxury. We are talking about a chair in the corner with my feet propped up on an open file drawer. There is no heat on the 4th floor so I take my coat down with me and wrap up with it. Usually I pull the hood down over my eyes so that it blocks out all light and I am all set for an hour. Amazingly enough I can fall asleep with in 5 minutes so I get a pretty good little nap down there. I also sleep really hard so the first thing I do is to make sure the alarm on my phone is set. I would hate to sleep until 4ish and actually have to have one of the co-workers come down and get me.

Today I got all cozy settled in and dozed off when there was a really loud, annoying beep from my phone. What tha hell??? I popped up out of the chair and almost broke and ankle trying to get my feet of the file drawer as I scrambled for my phone. There was no call, there was no message, there was just my screen saver looking at me. I sort of thought I had lost my mind and maybe dreamed the whole thing. I settled back in and again right as I dozed off this BEEP sounded again. Again I checked the whole phone out. I shook it. I squeezed it really tight because we all know a good shake and a squeeze should fix it, right? Nope, again the thing beeped only this time I was ready for it. A nice little alert of Low Battery flashed across the phone.

Low Battery??? Did my phone lose its mind? I plugged the thing in last night. It had a full charge at 8 am this morning. I have made no calls today. It has just been sitting on my desk holding down so papers. How could it lose a charge that quick? Have I mentioned that I hate this phone as it is so this did not sit well. It was actually, pretty much, pissing me off. I started searching for the alert turner off’er thing. I went through every button there was on my phone. I hit every sound alert, every ringtone, every anything that looked like it could be connected with that annoying loud beep. Every three minutes the phone would taunt me with a beep and off I would go in a different direction looking for that alert. The phone was so winning this battle. That’s ok, I was fixing to win the war.

I pulled out my big guns. I called *2. That’s right, baby, customer service. Things were getting serious. I was losing sleep time here. I needed a nap dammit and the phone situation was not helping my crabbiness. Customer Service was going to be my knight in shining armor. They were going to slay the beep (I really need to lay off the romance novels). Oh the horror, oh the pain when I discovered Customer Service SUCKED.

My first attempt at help got me the automated lady. She could not understand me. Yes and no did not compute. Yes and no screamed in a high pitch hissy fit was also pretty much a no go too so off she sent me to a real live person. God help me. This is where Jamie from somewhere far far away came into this story. Im sure Jamie was very nice but Jamie had to ask me a gazillion and 1 questions before he could get into my account. Jamie was not amused when I asked him if he trained at Ft. Knox. It’s a cell phone for cripes sake. So we go through the whole question, secret question, top secret secret question and what’s your hobby question to finally get into my account. Jamie then wanted to know if I wanted to pay my bill. No Jamie, just make the beep stop. Jamie got snippy with me and said, “Just go to the alerts.” Now excuse me Jamie, I did dammit. (OK I cussed Jamie) Jamie gave me the whole I hope we provided you with excellent service speel, let me send you to someone else. I think I might have pissed Jamie off.

ZAP, away I went with my phone beeping every two minutes now due to a really low battery. I was transferred to Terrell this time. Terrell was very nice and did not sound so far far away. What I did not like about Terrell is that Terrell had to ask me the same questions that Jamie had to ask me. Terrell also was not amused when I asked if he trained at Ft. Knox. I explained the problem to Terrell and managed to only whine 8 or 9 times and to only say damn twice. Terrell was of no help. Terrell had not a clue what I was talking about. Terrell made me speak in tongues. I swear I was pretty much foaming at the mouth over this. The whole time my phone is happily beeping away and letting me know that the battery was really getting really low. Terrell finally gave up. That’s right he quit helping me. His parting advice was to just go into the store and they MIGHT…MIGHT…. be able to help me.

Now to add insult to injury, right as Terrell suggested this, my phone shut down. Not only did it turn off but it played a happy little tune when it did. It was all I could do not to wing the phone up against the wall. It was also all I could do not to cry because the worst part of the whole story is that with all the fighting and fussing I had spent almost an entire hour dealing with the phone and had lost my nap as well as a bit of my dignity by letting an electronic device get the better of me.

So now the moral of the story is…. Just go ahead and sleep until 4ish. Honestly, your co-workers would rather you do that than have to hear you whine that you are sleepy and about how much you hate your phone for the rest of the day.