Thanksgiving Day Thoughts

I am always laughed at on my job because they say I go through cell phones like I go through panties.  Well it’s not quite that bad.  My first cell phone experience was with Sprint.  I had a Motorola cell phone and it was as big as a house phone.  But I was cool, because I had a mobile phone.  My (ex) husband brought it for me Christmas of 1997.  I remember after the first year I was having problems with the phone because the long pull out antennae broke and I called Sprint and told them to shut the phone off.  They said ohhh no we will send you a new phone FREE.  I eagerly accepted.  The next year when my one year contract was over they sent me another phone.  Oh I was in love with Sprint now…all this free stuff.   I was in the military then and I got a 25% discount on top of it all. I think my plan was for 400 minutes or something that I could never live with today (LOL) so I spoke on the phone as little as possible.  I just liked the idea of having a phone. When I went overseas on a military deployment Sprint was set up on the shore with free phones that we could use to call home.  Then I told all my friends about Sprint and found out

that hey…I could get paid for referring friends.  I made money by talking good about them.  It was a love relationship me and Sprint had.

But  sometimes bad things happen to good things.  I moved to NC and all of a sudden my beautiful signal got spotty and I did the “Can you hear me now” thing….constantly.  I was so disappointed.  I tried to get out of my contract with no penalty but they would not do it.  I wound up reporting them to the BBB.  They reduced the amount of my payoff and I left them.  Then I went to ATT, had a fight with them and left, again paying a termination fee, and then I went to Verizon, who I have to admit had the best signal in my area but was way too expensive for me so I wound up leaving them to go back to ATT and again paid a termination fee.  When I got back to ATT they had the iPhone and now their service sucked so I left them and went to T-Mobile.  And yes I paid a termination fee with them also. Someone I knew who travels a lot convinced me to go with T-Mobile because he claimed  everywhere he goes he gets a signal.  It didn’t happen here.  Plus T-Mobile has the worst security of all.  They can be a girlfriend’s dream if you have a dog for a boyfriend though.  If you wanna know how…don’t ask me…do your homework.  Anyway each one of these switches happened in a span of 5 years AND I got a new phone with every switch.  ALSO some of the phones did not work properly so I had to trade them in on the warranty, so yeah, I can speak on cell phones and security holes and dropped calls and such from experience.

T-Mobile hands down is the cheapest service yet, and they have the free Wi-Fi hotspot to use with my laptop for free.  With unlimited data I thought it was a win-win situation.  Until you consider I cannot get a signal in my house.  It is the most frustrating thing.  I mean here I am trying to talk on the phone and all I hear is “You’re breaking up”  “hello?” “are you there?” I get all excited telling a story and the phone drops the call and I don’t realize it for a good part of the story until my phone rings in my ear on full blast scaring the bejesus out of me with the person calling me back.  I am getting to the point of hating cell phones.  Also I have not been able to find my house phone handset for a while now so you know what…I pass on using the phone most of the time…it’s that bad with T-Mobile!!

Today, started off with me talking to a friend on the phone.  I had to go outside in the cold to hear good.   Frustrated, I decided before I leave out tonight I will get all my cell phone and home phone issues resolved, by any means necessary.   I called Dish Network first.  Frontier had a special that if you switch to them and bundle TV, Phone and Internet together you get a special promotional price plus a $450 Apple gift card. Apple has a lot of gadgets ai would love to get and I can get a few with that gift card.  If I called Frontier I would have to get Direct TV but since I already have Dish satellites in my yard I decided to go through DISH.   They gave me the same gift card deal.  Time Warner Cable had a lockdown on my TV internet and phone.  It started at $75 a month and now it’s $180 a month!!  I DON’T EVEN WATCH TV LIKE THAT!!  And when I broke up with my ex I changed my phone number and all day every day for the last year this frick fracking phone rings for some chick named Wanda Williams who they are trying to collect money from.  I keep telling them Wanda does not live here but they keep calling.  I am glad I switched today.  And Wanda Williams, if you Google your name and find my blog I just want to tell you girrrrrrrl, I hope they don’t catch up to you because you owe a lot of folks!

The guy at Dish was in a good mood and I guess he was.  I bet he was making about $45 an hour today with double time and a half.  Every time he tried to tell me how much the new bill was going to be the phone reception would get bad and the sound would break up.  He said I sounded like his wife because she says every time he talks money all she hears is wha wha wha.  LOL I managed to hear that I would be saving about $40 a month and I will get HBO, Showtime, Cinemax and Blockbuster streams for 3 months free.  Oh yeah.  I am going to watch TV these three months!  They are coming to install tomorrow afternoon.  Good thing I am going out early tomorrow.  Also when I put my TV back on the wall I couldn’t figure out how to hook the DVR, surround sound and VCR back up so there it sits…now he will do it for me.  hee hee hee.

Next was taking care of this cell phone.  I called Sprint to see about switching.  I got some guy named Roel.  Okay having a name of a trucking company was a turn off in itself.  But he was polite and he gave me the information I needed until I asked him about corporate discounts.  Military, veteran, USAA.  I gave him everything I was eligible for and he couldn’t find half of them and so he said he could group me in some military organization for 12%.  Uhhh. .. No thanks.  I hung up and called back.  I had to wait on hold another 16 minutes, yes I timed it.  This time I got a young man named Jedi.  I suspect I was speaking to a call center in India, but I did not mind.  A lot of times when you call these call centers the person on the other end has to stick to a script.  It’s very frustrating on the caller side having to repeat things you just said because the person you are speaking to is bound by a script…no matter what, and I am sure that frustrates them also.  Sometimes they do not have the best sense of humor either and what they consider as polite remarks sometimes sounds smart alecy and smug to me.   Then here comes Jedi.  He said his dad was a Star Wars buff.  Really?  I would have never guessed.  LOL.  He was helpful, did not make me repeat everything, and his humor was on cue.  He actually had me laughing heartily.  He helped me pick out my plan and uhhhh USAA earned me a 23% discount!!  Thank you Jedi!  Mwah!  Now the discount is not on the whole bill mind you, none of the cell phone companies do that anymore, unless you are grandfathered in.  I was happy with 23%.  And I got free extended batteries for all my phones.  Yes I said phones, with an ess.   I also sponsor two of my kid’s phones.  You might say WHAT?? Let them get their own phones, they are grown!  Look… I can’t stand the drama of when I need to talk to them their phones are turned off so I just go ahead and put them on my plan.  That way I don’t have to worry about the phone being off, them changing numbers as often as I change phones etc.  It saves a lot of frustration.  Plus when they tell me that they did not call me back because they didn’t have a signal, I can check LOL.  The offer is always there for them to go in the store and pay on the bill anytime they feel the urge to do so.  It hasn’t happened yet.

I am thankful that its Thursday evening, I am full, homework is all done, I got new cell phones coming in the mail, new TV and Internet and phone service starting soon and I am saving a few dollars…I am a happy camper.  Now it’s time to go out and have some fun!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!