My elderly (84) father requested that I accompany him to T Mobile to get his phone fixed. He gets cranky with salespeople,it usually isn't a lot of joy and fun, so I wasn't super excited about helping, but he's my dad so I sucked it up. I got a latte on the way, that helped.
I was waiting for him outside the store when an employee of the store came out and said, "Are you Janet? your dad is inside!" well, that's nice, I thought. But who knows what dad did to make that happen.
I went in. Dad was seated at the only place to sit ( what is it with phone stores not having places to sit?) at a desk in the back. By himself. The woman who called me in went to the register and started helping customers. Dad told me she'd be right back, well it didn't look like it. We waited for a while, then I went over and said quietly, " My dad is still waiting for you" and she uh huhed me.So I went back and sat in her chair. Ok, they were busy, 3 employees and maybe five clusters of customers. Some of them came in after Dad, though.
Finally a young man named Steven came to help us.he brought me another chair, too. He was fairly patient with my dad's long winded explanation of what didn't work ( why did his phone show minutes available when he has an unlimited plan, well Stephen took that info right off the screen) and how does the alarm work ( Stephen set it so it would go off, actually there was no explanation of how to do this in the booklets that came with the phone, I asked if they had a simpler phone? no. If they had a cheat sheet for this one? no).
Steven allegedly fixed up the alarm, we will see how that goes, and my dad was mollified. While we were sitting there with Steven my dad asked if they could turn down the music that was blasting from an ipod right next to him ( it really was loud, any regular person would have had a hard time) and Steven turned it off, but then the woman ( manager?) snapped "Turn that back on Steven we have to have music in the store!" so Steven turned it back on, but lower. I said to her, my dad was having a hard time with that, and she had a face that said she clearly didn't care, rules are rules. What if my dad had a hearing aid or something that caused problems with the music blasting? really, it couldn't be off for ten miinutes? hmm. I didn't like that.
Dad didn't know how to access his voice mail, and he didn't like "voice mail" being listed in his contacts, so Stephen showed him how to access it, and eliminated Voice mail from the contact list. All without eye rolling or complaining, which I appreciate. He wasn't effusively friendly or helpful, but he was moderately kind and patient. that was fine.
So, my dad ( who had strewn his papers all over their desk, which I picked up and put in his T Mobile bag) was shuffled back out. He has a two year contract, unlimited minutes, no text or internet, and a phone he really doesn't know how to use, which is their simplest one...I'm hoping from here it goes ok.
This was a somewhat stressful outing. My dad was tired and still explaining ( in a long winded repetitive manner) to the people at the counter on the way out as I hustled him out the door. I wish they had a simpler phone with instructions for kids and older people. And maybe a better attitude about accommodating people's needs. But we used to have T Mobile and I remember when it started to turn. Not my favorite. But is any other cellular phone company really better? read more