I got this other program to work, so far, for downloading photos from the phone to the computer.
CAUTION. Negativity dumping ahead:
Today's battle was nailing down the details of how my rate plan actually works, which is significantly different from how it was represented to me. I asked ALL the right questions in the store. But that doesn't do any good when the people at the store aren't even told the "loopholes" of how the plans they are selling work. It took a conference call between the Cingular customer service rep, the department supervisor at the store, and myself, to inform the store of how the calling plan actually charges its minutes.
Then it took several more calls back to Cingular (NOT on the cell phone and NOT using any of my minutes!) to nail down the rest of how the plan specifically works. I think I talked to 4 different reps and two different supervisors, and had two radically different answers I was being given for how the minutes get used. Finally I got a supervisor who was more helpful, he told me the answer I had hoped to hear, and I asked him to double check that information because I'd heard the opposite answer several times by then. He came back saying he was "so sorry," that yes, it did work the other (not as good for me) way, that the plan rules had changed on Sept. 1, and that he hadn't even known.
Obviously this company functions on the principle of keeping everybody possible in the dark about how its plans actually work, so that only the rare customer like me, who pays close attention to my account and follows up with asking questions, will have to be told the full information. Because, of course, the information is not favorable to the customer, and is completely different from the way the company instructs its salespeople to sell the plans.
I think the plan is still going to work for the kind of calling I will be doing, but I'm not that happy to have been misinformed and given so much wrong information by the people who are supposed to know. My biggest problem with this kind of thing is that the customer has no recourse. I've dealt with it with several other large corporations. Bottom line, it doesn't matter HOW many times you, as the customer, confirm and double-check the information, write down who told you that information, and expect that company to stand behind what you were told. No matter who, representing the company, told you what, how many times, the company falls back on the line "You were given the wrong information, and this is how it actually works." Meaning, too bad, you can try as hard as you want to get the right information so you can make an informed decision, but no matter what, that company is under no circumstances going to have any responsibility to live up to the claims it or its employees make. The customer is screwed, end of story. And all this in the name of "customer service, we're so glad to assist you, how may we serve your needs?" What a load of crap, and one of the things that makes me most angry in the world, the sheer hypocrisy of it that the entire corporate world seems to have bought into.
In fact, I'm still owed a call back by a person at Cingular corporate with whom I left a message today. I told them I had a problem and I needed a call back, and left home and work numbers. And if I don't hear from them by tomorrow, I will call him again. Bottom line, I'm sure there is no way this person cares one whit what I got told, and there is "nothing he can do" about any of it except claim to be sorry. Of course he could stand behind what I was told and give me a plan that actually did what I was told this one does, which is what we would do in our own business if we told a customer something wrong, but his company is too big to have to do that. But regardless, if he does not one other thing for me, I DO expect that this person will speak with me. If he won't have the common courtesy to call back a customer, then I will call until I reach him and he will have earned every word of displeasure that I choose to express to him about how his company does its business.
Of course I would return the phone and cancel the whole plan... IF I really thought any of the other companies were any better. I know better than that though. I should have known this phone thing would turn into some kind of issue. It was way too good and too easy to be true. As it is, I need to try not to keep thinking about it, call this jerk back tomorrow and tell him what I think of his company, because it's the only thing I have any power whatsoever to do, and just at least be glad the phone plan will still cover what I need it to, if not nearly as conveniently as I had been told it did.
Meanwhile I ran the battery of the phone way down today, and in almost two hours, it hasn't recharged enough to even power up beyond telling me "charging" yet. I'm not positive, because it's my first cell phone (I know, I'm behind the times!), but it seems like it is taking way too long. So now I'm worried that the phone is defective and that I'm going to have yet more to deal with, like getting it replaced and having to redo such programming as I've done so far. Not THAT big a deal, but I just don't want to give it any more energy. I got a phone and I want to use it. Not worry about it it's working right and fight fights about it.
I knew there was a reason I put off getting a cell phone for this long. I'm glad to have it, but now that I do... I just want to enjoy it, not DEAL with crap about it.
Meanwhile Boston Legal is on in less than an hour, and I'll enjoy watching that. My one show I make sure to watch or tape. I guess I can forgive myself; it doesn't make me a horrible mindless person that there is one network television show that I watch and really like.
Tonight I also realized that my sheaf of papers from the studio is missing. The stack of paper with my notes on updating their web site isn't in my bag, my car, or either of my rooms. I'm just positive the papers were in my bag when I left the office, and since they're not in my car or my rooms, the only place I can think of is the a-room. The only thing I can think is that they might have fallen out when I set my bag down in there while I was listening to music at the end of the day.
I hope the papers are there and they find them, rather than me having to ask again what items I was supposed to keep and remove from the web page. But now I have to worry that they're going to think I'm sloppy and/or irresponsible for leaving papers in the studio and for losing my work. I'm trying to make a good impression on these people, not act like an airhead, which I feel like when stuff like this happens.
I wish I would find the papers here, sitting somewhere I didn't remember taking them out and setting them, but I sure don't know where that would be that I haven't looked. I guess all I can do is either call tomorrow and see if they found them, or wait till I go in on Thursday.
One more thing on my mind, to make something good into something I have to worry about. I don't need this. I need my good things happening, not for all of them to go bad. Hopefully the phone thing and the studio thing will both work out fine and I'll have worried for nothing, but meanwhile I'm stressing some.
CAUTION. Negativity dumping ahead:
Today's battle was nailing down the details of how my rate plan actually works, which is significantly different from how it was represented to me. I asked ALL the right questions in the store. But that doesn't do any good when the people at the store aren't even told the "loopholes" of how the plans they are selling work. It took a conference call between the Cingular customer service rep, the department supervisor at the store, and myself, to inform the store of how the calling plan actually charges its minutes.
Then it took several more calls back to Cingular (NOT on the cell phone and NOT using any of my minutes!) to nail down the rest of how the plan specifically works. I think I talked to 4 different reps and two different supervisors, and had two radically different answers I was being given for how the minutes get used. Finally I got a supervisor who was more helpful, he told me the answer I had hoped to hear, and I asked him to double check that information because I'd heard the opposite answer several times by then. He came back saying he was "so sorry," that yes, it did work the other (not as good for me) way, that the plan rules had changed on Sept. 1, and that he hadn't even known.
Obviously this company functions on the principle of keeping everybody possible in the dark about how its plans actually work, so that only the rare customer like me, who pays close attention to my account and follows up with asking questions, will have to be told the full information. Because, of course, the information is not favorable to the customer, and is completely different from the way the company instructs its salespeople to sell the plans.
I think the plan is still going to work for the kind of calling I will be doing, but I'm not that happy to have been misinformed and given so much wrong information by the people who are supposed to know. My biggest problem with this kind of thing is that the customer has no recourse. I've dealt with it with several other large corporations. Bottom line, it doesn't matter HOW many times you, as the customer, confirm and double-check the information, write down who told you that information, and expect that company to stand behind what you were told. No matter who, representing the company, told you what, how many times, the company falls back on the line "You were given the wrong information, and this is how it actually works." Meaning, too bad, you can try as hard as you want to get the right information so you can make an informed decision, but no matter what, that company is under no circumstances going to have any responsibility to live up to the claims it or its employees make. The customer is screwed, end of story. And all this in the name of "customer service, we're so glad to assist you, how may we serve your needs?" What a load of crap, and one of the things that makes me most angry in the world, the sheer hypocrisy of it that the entire corporate world seems to have bought into.
In fact, I'm still owed a call back by a person at Cingular corporate with whom I left a message today. I told them I had a problem and I needed a call back, and left home and work numbers. And if I don't hear from them by tomorrow, I will call him again. Bottom line, I'm sure there is no way this person cares one whit what I got told, and there is "nothing he can do" about any of it except claim to be sorry. Of course he could stand behind what I was told and give me a plan that actually did what I was told this one does, which is what we would do in our own business if we told a customer something wrong, but his company is too big to have to do that. But regardless, if he does not one other thing for me, I DO expect that this person will speak with me. If he won't have the common courtesy to call back a customer, then I will call until I reach him and he will have earned every word of displeasure that I choose to express to him about how his company does its business.
Of course I would return the phone and cancel the whole plan... IF I really thought any of the other companies were any better. I know better than that though. I should have known this phone thing would turn into some kind of issue. It was way too good and too easy to be true. As it is, I need to try not to keep thinking about it, call this jerk back tomorrow and tell him what I think of his company, because it's the only thing I have any power whatsoever to do, and just at least be glad the phone plan will still cover what I need it to, if not nearly as conveniently as I had been told it did.
Meanwhile I ran the battery of the phone way down today, and in almost two hours, it hasn't recharged enough to even power up beyond telling me "charging" yet. I'm not positive, because it's my first cell phone (I know, I'm behind the times!), but it seems like it is taking way too long. So now I'm worried that the phone is defective and that I'm going to have yet more to deal with, like getting it replaced and having to redo such programming as I've done so far. Not THAT big a deal, but I just don't want to give it any more energy. I got a phone and I want to use it. Not worry about it it's working right and fight fights about it.
I knew there was a reason I put off getting a cell phone for this long. I'm glad to have it, but now that I do... I just want to enjoy it, not DEAL with crap about it.
Meanwhile Boston Legal is on in less than an hour, and I'll enjoy watching that. My one show I make sure to watch or tape. I guess I can forgive myself; it doesn't make me a horrible mindless person that there is one network television show that I watch and really like.
Tonight I also realized that my sheaf of papers from the studio is missing. The stack of paper with my notes on updating their web site isn't in my bag, my car, or either of my rooms. I'm just positive the papers were in my bag when I left the office, and since they're not in my car or my rooms, the only place I can think of is the a-room. The only thing I can think is that they might have fallen out when I set my bag down in there while I was listening to music at the end of the day.
I hope the papers are there and they find them, rather than me having to ask again what items I was supposed to keep and remove from the web page. But now I have to worry that they're going to think I'm sloppy and/or irresponsible for leaving papers in the studio and for losing my work. I'm trying to make a good impression on these people, not act like an airhead, which I feel like when stuff like this happens.
I wish I would find the papers here, sitting somewhere I didn't remember taking them out and setting them, but I sure don't know where that would be that I haven't looked. I guess all I can do is either call tomorrow and see if they found them, or wait till I go in on Thursday.
One more thing on my mind, to make something good into something I have to worry about. I don't need this. I need my good things happening, not for all of them to go bad. Hopefully the phone thing and the studio thing will both work out fine and I'll have worried for nothing, but meanwhile I'm stressing some.