Borderline Fantastic

Audio: mp3
Running Time: 48:05
Hosts: Evan and Mike

Topics
Evan’s ski trip
Evan visits a medium
Evan tries to find ski pants
Evan emails to a radio show
Costco gas station is one-way
Talking to the person cutting your hair
Applauding at movies
College Basketball
(more…)

Audio: m4a mp3
Running Time: 29:48
Hosts: Evan and Mike

Topics
Valentine’s Day
Gas Stations
Gas Cap Side
Evan’s Team in the Middle School Girls Basketball Playoffs
College Basketball
Year of the Pig
Evan is going to see a psychic
(more…)

Today my cell phone wasn’t working all that well. Actually, as far as the phone part goes, it wasn’t working at all. Every call I tried to make failed and if I tried calling my phone it would eventually give me a busy signal. I called up Cingular and since my phone is less than two weeks old the best guess was that the phone was defective and Monday I’d have to deal with that department since its not open on Sundays. Ok, not the best scenario, but survivable. There are a few old phones around the house that I can pop my SIM into that would let me get by for a few days. Except that when I put my SIM in another phone it still didn’t work. I then found that my parents’ phones weren’t working either. Something must be wrong with the tower, so I gave Cingular a call back.

The Cingular lady checks into some things and comes back and tells me that my phone isn’t working because there are no towers in my area. Her best guess is that they had a roaming agreement that ran out. She wasn’t quite sure how to explain the fact that I had full bars and that my Alpha Tag said Cingular. I questioned what we were to do now that we won’t be able to get service at the house. I was told our termination fees would be waived. I also mentioned that it would have been nice if there was some sort of notice. She told me that letters would be sent out soon.

I didn’t believe her for a second, but she seemed confident that there were letters being sent out letting us know that we couldn’t get service anymore. That would really be terrible. I quickly did some T-Mobile research but that didn’t make me feel any better. A little while later I tried my phone again and sure enough it was working again. We’ll see where this goes over the next week.

This is just the latest occurrence dealing with a cell phone company. A few months ago I dealt with Verizon and they were completely clueless. It took me over a day and about six people to get my phone activated. Finally I was transferred to a guy who did it in two minutes, the trouble was finding that guy. I went back to Cingular after the Verizon experiment because the call quality was so awful on Verizon (I had a LG VX-8600). I’d been happy with my Motorola RAZR V3, except for the fact that it was getting old and making some buzzing noises. I jumped on the Motorola RAZR V3xx as soon as it came out and it sounds fantastic.

I seem to always know more about how the company works than the people who actually work for them. When the first guy at Cingular told me my phone was defective he said he was going to transfer me to the warranty people. I told him that my phone was less than 30 days old, so this wasn’t going to be a warranty exchange. He disagreed with me and transferred me. The guy in warranty told me that I needed a different department because the phone was less than 30 days old. Hmm, that sounds familiar. This sort of thing happens all the time. I wish I was a little more clueless so I wouldn’t be quite as angry when talking to these people.

My favorite part of any of these conversations is at the end. When there is nothing they can do to help you they ask “Is there anything else I can assist you with?” You just told me I can’t use my phone at home, I think we’re done here.

I hate those automated systems that every company has when you call their help line or customer service. I hate how you have to enter all this information before you get to talk to a real person, and then they ask you all the same information again! Why did i have to enter it in the first place??? Even worse is when you have to talk to Mr. Automated Non-Human instead of typing it in. Half the time he doesn’t understand what you are saying. And sometimes if i’m trying to take care of something at work i dont want to say my social, birthday, mother’s maiden name, childhood pet, first known zip code, and favorite color out loud. It seems like Mr. ANH has replaced the humans all together and its nearly impossible to get a real one. Sometimes you have to know the special code-word to tell Mr. ANH to get a human (which, for United Airlines is “Agent” by the way). Then, once you do you get Mr. Guy-With-A-Strange-Accent-Half-Way-Around-The-World, he sometimes has more trouble understanding you than Mr. ANH. Also, i hate when Mr. GWASAHWATW seems grumpy that he has to answer the phone and talk to you at all. You’re a call center! Its your job! Deal!

I’ve talked to about 20 GWASAHWATW’s and a handful ANH’s in the last month trying to set up all my utilities and then having to call backwhen something went wrong. Just once it would be nice to talk to areal human right away, or even after entering a couple choices to narrow down the search (billing questions, setup service, etc) but before entering any personal information. I hope the companies realize they’ve gone too far to save a few bucks and are pissing off their customers. I’m about to the point where i’ll spend a few extra dollars a month for the company that doesnt use Mr. GWASAHWATW and especially ones that dont use Mr. ANH. I hate him!

I was going to go with the cliche Top 5 Superbowl commercials, but we kind of discussed that yesterday, so I’m doing something different this week. After a rough day yesterday, this was my shower thought of the day. The difference is, I don’t have all 5 answers yet. I don’t want to half-@ss it, I still need to ponder, but, I feel you all may need to ponder as well. So, I’m going to post the question, and when you feel you have adequately solved the world’s problems (or at least 5 things), post-away!

Audio: m4a mp3
Running Time: 47:03
Hosts: Evan and Mike

Topics
Evan goes 2-0 on Groundhog Day
Poll: How does your alarm go off?
Fives: Top Five coolest jobs ever that I wish I had thought to do…
Super Bowl Commercials
College Basketball
Triple Crown
Hotel Ruling
Evan gets an odd phone call
(more…)

Perhaps this monthly look at the State of the Fantastic will include more in future months. We’ll start out just looking at the most popular posts during January.

Top Pages of January
Top 5 Vacation Destinations
MacWorld 2007
Inter-Dis Material 19
I want announcers that watch football games
The Top Five Things I Love About Living in ____________.

What are the top five careers you would want?  Not to include your current job.  I don’t mean what else did you want to be growing up, but what are some awesome jobs that you wish you had thought of.

5) Zoo/aquarium animal caretaker - when i was in Brisbane Australia, we went to see Steve Irwin’s zoo.  There were a couple of trainers playing with baby tigers (kittens?).  Thats a job that would be awesome!

4) Mythbuster - I would give anything to be on that show!

3) National Geographic photographer - I’ve always liked photography and travel.  Maybe if i worked for them i could go to Antarctica and play with the Penguins!

2) Navy Seal - They get all sorts of cool toys!  I wanted to be one for awhile, but i’m neither male nor buff.

1) Fighter pilot - This was my older brother’s dream, and I didn’t want to copy him, but now i kinda wish i did.  I don’t know if i have the stomach for it though.