The "I Didn't Know Any Better" Sprint Days

I have been suffering through my wireless contract for the past 16 years. After getting my first real job as an Investment Management Customer Service Rep at a large financial services institution, I walked around downtown Boston and into the first cell phone store I saw. Chance. That's how I found Sprint. And that first colored flip phone (if you know me at all, you know that I do not buy gray or black phones. From the very first one, if it was pink, or purple, or really anything but gray or black, I was going to buy it.)

I went through my share of colored phones, each time extending my harmless contract another two years. All providers were the same, as far as I knew. Besides, I lived and worked in a large metropolitan area, where coverage was fine (except for in the vault of my bank, and I only went there once or twice...). So status quo served me just fine.

Then we moved to the boonies. Well, as far as Sprint coverage was concerned we were in the Boonies. Daily, I would lose calls as I would travel across main streets, that oh, just happened to have trees on either side of them. That must be the reason, I told myself. I should drive on roads with no trees. And no telephone lines either. Ironic. I would just find "better ways" to get to my destinations.

And this is how things went for years and years. My just "putting up with" the fair, often "poor" service that this otherwise helpful company offered. At least I thought they were helpful, until I actually needed to visit one of the service centers for help. That adjective soon went out the window.

Whenever you visit one of these service centers, you are required to wait about 35 minutes before being helped. That allows you to hear everyone else's problems and realize that yours isn't so big after all. Dropped calls? That's nothing. This poor slob's ear electrocutes every time he answers a phonecall. Oh, and this guy -- he tried to cancel out of his contract, and now he has to come here every Monday morning and re-activate his phone. Just for thinking about leaving us. Yeah, ok. I can live with a few dropped calls. I am outta here...

And so I continued to deal with the sub-par. After all, I hadn't entered the age of texting, or Internet via cell phone. No, those perks were years away for any Sprint customers. Hard dial, phone connections, that's all I needed them for. But, wait -- I could get into texting..

Enter 2008. Sure, it was months, years even - after the other better-knowns had been providing these services. But I caught wind of them, and I wanted them for my own. Mistake #2. But I quietly acquiesce, being happy enough for what I get and when I do... Such a martyr, we all know.

So now I am struggling through spotty connections, texts that don't go through three-quarters of the time, and web service that gives me the exact same status updates it gave me three hours earlier. That's not possible! I change my own status every two. Hmmm.... sub-par Sprint was frustrating me again. And, cough, I might ACTUALLY call them on it. Let's see how this goes...