The Aerie
Well, the phone is finally back.
[T-3.gif] This stupid situation started when I bought this nifty new
phone, the Palm Tungsten W. It does everything: PDA, cell phone, web
browser, text messaging. The only thing it doesn't do is take photos,
which is just fine with me, thanks.
Sprint is advertising its phones with that horrid ad in which a lovely
blonde lass mocks a homely jerk by surreptitiously snapping his
photograph and sending it to her friend. This is a feature? Likewise
the "Dip says 'Hi'." commercial: a man positions his son in front of a
sign that says "Dip". His wife thinks its funny. Their son is doomed
to spend the next twenty years in therapy. Ha ha.
So anyway the Tungsten doesn't take pictures, which is good. But it
does everything else, which is also good. It has just one little major
flaw: You can only use the phone if you have an earbud.
This was very bad. I needed a clumsy, graceless $30 cable in order to
make or receive phone calls. In order to catch an incoming call I
either had to leave the cable connected all the time, or try to
untangle and connect the cable while the phone rang. VERY fugly.
I tried leaving the phone on my hip and the cable clipped under my
shirt, and that worked to an extent -- I only looked a LITTLE geeky.
Unfortunately the cable between my beltline and the PDA would catch on
things, and very soon the plug tip broke and I was out another $30 for
a new cable.
[T-4.jpg] Then I stumbled across an engineer on the Internet who was
advertising his service: to install ear- and mouthpieces into the back
of the Tungsten. Wonderful! I looked his website over for a while,
this was just one service of many that he offered. He seemed legit.
I packed up my phone and sent it off.
Then the fun began!
On September 9th he sent me an e-mail, "We completed work on your T/W
today, and will be shipping it tomorrow."
On the 16th he sent, "it was mistakenly placed back on the incoming
instead of outgoing... I will make sure it goes out on the next
shipment."
Two days later his assistant sent me a note saying "Your item has been
shipped."
On the 24th of September he sent me a note, "we got hit with a virus
which has made a mess of things here."
On the 25th, "We have finally found your Tungsten... I will personally
ship it."
26th, "Your Tungsten will go out tomorrow and I will personally send
you a tracking number."
He called me, voice, on the 27th and we talked about the situation. He
outlined a very elaborate set of circumstances. According to him, his
database had been hacked and the return address on a bunch of phones
set to a vacant house in New Jersey. Twelve phones had been delivered
and were considered lost, but the rest of the phones had been stopped
by the FBI and the USPS, and were being shipped back to him. Meanwhile
the FBI was "staking out" the house to capture the thieves.
This was such an extraordinary tale that it was hard to disbelieve. It
was also hard to believe. How could his shipping department --
presumably one fellow -- not have noticed that all the outbound labels
were for the same address in New Jersey? His story might have been
more believable if accompanied by a USPS shipping number that would
have at least demonstrated the delivery gone awry. But no matter, I
just wanted my phone back, I really didn't care about his troubles.
October 1, "I have your Tungsten!!!!! I will be shipping it
tomorrow!!!!!"
Nothing more for a long, agonizing week. I sent several increasingly
angry notes.
October 7, "I will have all shipping info by 5:00 p.m. PST."
On October 11th I had had enough. I resigned myself to the fact that I
might never get this phone back again. I had no idea what this fellow
might be doing with my phone -- he couldn't be placing calls as me,
because I had my phone's ID chip -- but it seemed clear I might never
see it again.
So I called the phone company, and they agreed to pare my phone
service back to the bare minimum necessary to keep the account open. I
even considered chucking the whole thing and having them switch
service back to one of my older phones.
Of course, in taking this step I invoked Murphy's Law. Now that I'd
screwed up my phone service, Murphy's Law took effect and immediately
began drawing my phone back to me.
Only hours after trimming my phone service, I got a note from the
guy's assistant. His boss, he claimed, was in the hospital, the
assistant would ship the Tungsten.
Imagine my astonishment when I saw that this note was accompanied
by... a shipping tracking number?
For two days I followed the number as the package made its way across
the country. What would be in it? Would it be my phone? Would it be
empty, and I'd get some message saying "Oh, we found your PDA, we
forgot to put it in the box, we'll be shipping it tomorrow, promise!"
Would it be someone else's PDA? Would it have the modifications? The
suspense was killing me.
And then yesterday, it arrived! Having missed the shipment, I went to
the Post Office to pick it up. When I arrived I realized that I'd left
my wallet in my computer bag at home.
No problem! The Post Office never asked for ID, just took my delivery
slip and handed me the phone. Keep that in mind if you're ever looking
to commit a federal crime: you can probably get some nice stuff by
heading down to the post office with a few delivery slips and no ID.
With shaking hands I opened the box and... there was a Tungsten W in
it! It looked a little worse for the wear, but certain scuffs and
scratches seemed to confirm that it was my original. I inserted the
identifier chip and turned it on... It worked! I placed a call... the
earpiece worked! I could use my phone without the cable!
But further delights awaited me when I returned home, for during its
absence AT&T apparently erected a cell phone tower somewhere in the
vicinity of my home. Instead of getting 12% signal in my office (which
was just enough to tell me my phone was ringing, but not enough to let
me answer and take the call), I am now getting about 50% signal, or
"plenty" for taking and placing calls.
So the phone is back. It works. It works better than it did before. I
even got AT&T to straighten out my online access (a whole different
problem) so I can manage the account on the web.
Hooray! The phone is back! And I can call without the cable!
But... I only have 27 minutes of time left on my plan for the next two
weeks.
Oh what the hell. If it takes Murphy's Law to bring the phone back, so
be it. Things could be worse.
[1]Last
Posted by Albatross at October 14, 2003 12:00 AM