My work cell phone died on Sunday. I know, poor me. My cell phone is paid for by my company. In all honesty, I make more personal calls on it than work ones. But they require me to carry the little bastard of a phone around. And so I require them to pay for it. It's a corporate phone. If I ever leave, they get to keep the phone. Right now, that is reason enough to blow this joint and find another job.
Now before you get all jealous of having one less bill to pay. Let me tell you, it's a pain in the arse. The screen on my phone has died and the phone only holds a charge for about a half a day before it starts beeping "LOW BATTERY." I wouldn't actually know if it is the low battery or a bomb ticking off since I don't have a screen to look at - only a black dark phone that is a reminder of how much it sucks to have a work cell phone.
No screen also means not being able to see my address book. I stopped memorizing phone numbers in 1999 when I received my first cell phone. I actually had to email Neville today to have him send me his cell phone number. I don't even know my own spouse's phone number. It's that bad.
So I opened a "ticket" with our not-so-competent IT department telling them this phone bit the bullet and I need a new one. On Monday. It is now Wednesday and I still haven't heard from them. Since this isn't the first time that a cheap, crappola of a phone has broken on me, I already am acutely aware of how painful a process is to get a new one.
First, IT Cell-Phone Master will come and try to "diagnose" the problem. I can tell you now that the problem is that this sheet-tay phone is over two years old and that I'm tough on company equipment and it's BROKEN so just ORDER ME A NEW ONE already. As you can see, I'm also a very easy customer.
Then the CP Master will tell me that the phone is in fact broken and give me two cell phone options to choose from so that he can order the new phone. These two options will be worse than the cheapest option you get when you get the free phone with your service. There will be no camera phone, no Razor, no Chocolate, no fancy szchmancy anything. It will be the most basic of basic cell phones.
Once I pick between "bad" or "worse," it will take the customer-oriented CP Master over a week to get me the new phone. Then we'll play email tag to arrange a time in which he is at his desk so that I can walk two buildings over in high heels to pick up the new phone.
I'll then have to take my old broken phone and my new to-be-broken phone to the Cingular store where I will beg for the technician to transfer my numbers from one phone to the other. If I'm lucky, I'll get the right Technician on the first visit. If I'm unlucky, I'll be emailing all of my friends and family to send me their numbers again. And then I'll be manually entering in over 100 phone numbers in my free time.
Now, if this wasn't a corporate phone on a corporate plan, then I could have gone down to the Cingular store on Sunday, picked out a new phone on the spot, and had the technician transfer the numbers. I'd be talking on my new cell phone right now.
But instead I'm listening to the ticking of the low battery, having to email my spouse instead of call him, and wait for the IT department to get off their asses and get me a new phone.
Bet that cell phone bill doesn't look so bad now, does it?
