A Plan

About a week or so ago, the Boyfriend’s cell phone died.

No biggie, we thought. We have A Plan. Not a plan for what to do with our lives or how to save enough money for a vacation, which would be really, really nice. But when we got our cell phone package, we bought one of those “total equipment protection” plans that goes along with it.

Basically, the “total equipment protection” plan means that if you screw up your phone in just about any way, they replace it for you. I walk through most of life without a plan, but learned the hard way that I need one when it comes to my communications equipment.

The first cell phone I had got left in a cab one night when I was out with friends and got sloppy stupid drunk. The second phone I had got dropped in a toilet. Don’t ask.

So when I got our new phones, I got a plan too.

The way “the plan” works is that you’re supposed to take the phone to a repair center and let them take a look at it. They either fix it for you for nothing, or figure out that you’ve messed it up beyond all hope and give you a new one. This sounds like a pain in the butt, but I wasn’t worried. One of the reasons I went with “the plan” is that there’s a repair center just up the road from my house. Easy street, for sure. Or so I thought.

I didn’t have to work on Thursday, so I headed to the repair center late in the afternoon. The friendly salesman behind the counter greeted me, and I told him I had a dead phone I needed some help with.

“Oh, OK. Well our technician is out sick today. He’ll be back tomorrow though.”

“Oh, well, what are his hours?”

“He works 9-5 Monday-Friday. We’re open on Saturday too, but for sales only. The tech is off then.”

Now this was a wee bit of a problem. I don’t have another weekday off for quite some time, and neither does The Boyfriend. Having a repair center right around the corner from your home does you no good if the only times the tech is “in the house” is when you’re off at work yourself.

I sighed. I was a little frustrated, and wanted to whine. But then I thought about all the people at MY job, who rant and rave at our customer service staff. Usually, the bitching and moaning are about things that our poor frontline staff can’t change or control. It wasn’t this guy’s fault that his tech was out sick on the one weekday I didn’t have to work. It wasn’t his fault that the company didn’t consider the fact that most of the rest of the world is stuck at work 9-5 too when planning their techie’s schedule.

Then it hit me. Who cared if the tech was available at that moment? We wouldn’t die without a phone for a day or two.

“Oh, OK,” I told the salesman with a smile. “It’s almost impossible for me to get here during those hours, because I work then. So could I leave the phone so that he can look at it the next time he’s in, and then I could either pick it up or get my replacement on Saturday?”

It was the salesman’s turn to sigh. “I’m sorry, miss. I can’t do that. We’re not allowed to leave customer phones in the store overnight. You know … in case something happens.”

At this point, my jaw dropped just a little. “You mean that you aren’t allowed to let people drop off DEAD PHONES for service, in case something happens to them? They’re already dead, or we wouldn’t need to drop them off. Who cares if something happens!!”

“I’m sorry, that’s the way they do things,” he said, a bit sympathetically.

The former customer service manager that still lives in my brain came back to life then, and I thanked the guy and told him I was sorry for snapping. He looked stunned. I guess he doesn’t get too many annoyed repair customers who realize that strange polices just aren’t his fault. He thanked me and I left.

The “total equipment plan” covers lost and stolen as well as broken phones. But I guess they don’t want the “lost or stolen” part to happen in their own stores.

Just goes to show that even having a plan doesn’t guarantee that things will always go your way.