Cellphone Set Up Is The Devil

If you read that in Kathy Bates voice, then I have succeeded for the day. If not, I hope you hear this post in her voice as her character from The Waterboy. In that case, if you do, I consider that a win for today a well. But seriously, setting up a phone is the devil. Yesterday I had my day all planned out, and then those plans got shot to shit as I stayed on the phone with AT&T for forever and a decade yesterday to get my new phone set up. I did not want to get a new phone, but my iPhone six kept telling me I could not download the apps I wanted to use. Now that I have a new phone, I am giving my old phone to my uncle, so it will still be alive and well!

Activating my phone all started the night before when I found a way to activate online. Perfection. I did not realize that when I activated the phone, I did not activate the SIM card. That’s a whole other activation, and considering I’ve had my phone for about seven years now, I forgot all the details that come with setting up a new phone. In seven more years, I will probably be writing something very similar because I plan on keeping this phone until it forces me to upgrade. 

Soap Box Moment: That’s a bullshit thing to do to your customers who are paying an insane amount of money to be able to do more on our phones because you’ve programmed us into thinking that we need to be able to do more than text and call folks.

Back to the point. My dad got on the phone as soon as AT&T opened and started this mess. He had to start this mess because I’m under his plan. After about an hour, the person helping me said they had to do more research, and rather than keep me on hold, they would call me back. They also gave me another thing to try on my own that I ended up not having time for because I had to write. I had a job to do. When she called me back, I admitted I had not had time to do the other step. This lack of time then wasted about an hour and a half of my life afterward to be told, “I cannot move further without having your father authorize what I need to do.“

At this point, I was so annoyed that I wondered why we needed cellphones and wanted to throw the phone across the room. Spoiler alert: I did not. By the time my dad got home, I had handed him the phone and told him to have a go at trying to figure out how to activate it. I told him what I thought the problem was, but no one would address it on the phone with me. He didn’t waste too much more time on the phone and decided he would take it to the store. I thanked him, and within thirty minutes, he was back with a working phone.

Side Note: The second lady I spoke to on the second call told us not to go to the store because they would not fix it. WORST ADVICE EVER. Also, don’t tell your customers that because it makes your company appear that you did not train your store staff well enough to handle something that should not be so damn complicated in the first place!

My dad then tells me because there’s a primary and secondary line that they had to set up the primary line. I was furious. I said to him THAT IS WHAT I TOLD THE WOMAN ON THE PHONE. THE FIRST ONE. I EVEN ASKED DOES IT MATTER WHICH ONE I SET UP FIRST AND SHE SAID TO DO THE SECONDARY. 

WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG.

He laughed and then told me that would be $100. I told him I’d give him a hug and a thank you for accomplishing what I had tried to achieve for hours earlier. He laughed, handed my phone to me, and left thinking that the cellphone set up is seriously the devil. And now I want to watch The Waterboy.