Moving: My Phone

One of the necessities required in making a smooth relocation is getting to know the new area you will be living in. This can be accomplished in a number of ways, including driving around, looking at a series of maps, or calling a store or business before setting off and getting directions. My personal plan of attack uses a combination of these methods. I use the internet to find the address of a store or location I would like to visit, then I use an online map to plot my route, and finally (just to be extra sure) I call and ask for directions. Therefore, when I get into my car and start driving, I have a pretty good feel for where I will end up. I am not a big fan of “let’s just drive around and see what happens”. If I don’t know where I am, I ask for directions. Although, I tend to choose the wrong people for directions. For instance, calling my father to ask how I get onto the highway from Uxbridge. The man has been in Uxbridge maybe once in his lifetime (and that was 25 years ago).

Anyway, the unpacking was under control and I began getting a little cabin fever from being in the apartment for four days. The problem was that we had to stick around and wait for the bloody phone guy to show up! I was still without a phone, and therefore I had no internet. And that meant that I could not look up any shoe stores, clothing stores, grocery stores…NOTHING. I did not have a phonebook, and my cell phone was running low. It was becoming a state of emergency.

For the tenth time since I moved in Mom and I trekked down to the pay phone to talk to Kimberly at Sprint. You see, Kim and I had a bond. On my fourth call to Sprint good ol’ Kimmie was nice enough to tell me the truth about my phone situation.

“Oh, Miss, I am so sorry about all this trouble. It looks like the phone order was never placed. You see, when you called in a month ago and notified us that you were moving, we completed the administrative part – like giving you a new number – but no one actually completed the order for the line to be hooked up. Today is Monday, and the best I can do is send someone out tomorrow to get everything all straightened up”.

I was not impressed with the company, but Kim appeared to see through all of the confusion and set everything right. From that point forward, I called Kim directly with my problems. And boy oh boy did I have a lot of them.

By the time I reached the pay phone, it was pushing 3pm on Tuesday. I had not seen or heard from any Sprint representative, and wondered if he or she had come to my building and simply left when the buzzer system did not work (my buzzer is connected to my phone, and without a phone I don’t have a buzzer!) I highly doubted this scenario, yet it nagged at the back of my mind. When I first realized that I did not have a phone, I ran down to the lobby of my building and posted a sign. The sign was approximately 3x5 inches, and said the following:

For Apartment #901

Please Call 1-705-123-4567

After the first technician pulled a ‘no-show’, I wondered if my sign was adequate. I upgraded to a letter size piece of paper, and added “for Leslie Gough, Apartment 901”. I still received no news from either the phone or the cable technicians, so on Monday I upgraded my sign yet again. This time it was letter size, and I busted out my bright crayola markers, and added a bit more information. It looked something like this:

Attention Sprint Canada, Rogers Cable

For Leslie Gough, Apartment # 901

Please call cell phone: 1-705-123-4567

For entry to building

By Tuesday I was seriously questioning the Sprint technician’s vision capabilities. The guy from Rogers eventually turned up (after a few nasty phone calls to the company), however where was the Sprint dude? When Kimmie in Customer Service told me someone would come Tuesday, I thought I would take NO chances. I upgraded my sign to bright yellow paper, and wrote:

**ATTENTION**

BUZZER SYSTEM FOR APARTMENT 901 NOT CONNECTED

For Leslie Gough, Apt # 901

Please call cell phone for entry into building: 1-705-123-4567

Or Buzz building office – Code #5678

There were also some very large arrows pointing to the sign, and if I could have connected some flashing lights or perhaps a sound system playing a voice message, I would have. After four days without a phone or Internet, I was going slightly crazy.

I should probably mention that in addition to waiting for Sprint, I was expecting a delivery from the Internet company. You see, before I moved I arranged for everything to be connected in a certain, logical order. The phone goes in first (the day before I move in), the cable second (the day after I move in), and the Internet a few days after the cable (Tuesday or Wednesday). Seeing that it was Tuesday afternoon, I expected the possible arrival of my internet software package, making the sign in the lobby quite important.

So, at 3pm on Tuesday I dialed Kim’s number from the pay phone and waited for some good news. I heard about 15 minutes of Sprint’s Muzak (the same song playing in a loop, I might add) and caught myself humming along. Then Kim answered, and I informed her that no technician had showed up. She put me on hold (another 15 minutes of Muzak), then asked if she could call me back. I reluctantly gave her my number and cringed at the thought of 30 minutes on hold using my VERY expensive cell phone.

8:30 at night my cell phone rang, and I answered slightly annoyed with the delay in Kimmie’s reply. She informed me that the reason no one showed up was because no one sent a technician out. Pardon me? No one sent a technician out…Again???? And why pray tell Kimmie? Oh, I am so curious to know. (that was drenched in sarcasm, I might add)

Kimberly, who I discovered was working in Nova Scotia and had never been to Ontario in her life, attempted to convince me that Toronto was a very large area and therefore had several Sprint offices. This sometimes led to confusion in phone installations if the customer lives in the vicinity of multiple offices (or nowhere near a Sprint office, which I assumed was my case). I pressed her a little further and it was determined that she really had no idea what was going on. As I suspected...Kimmie, you disappoint.

Once I got off the phone with Kim I went to bed. I was out of cell phone minutes and out of patience. Heads were going to roll.