Thanks to the joys of being trapped as a consumer in the not-at-all competitive and darned near monopolistic world of the Big Three Wireless Carriers, I’m finding myself having to upgrade a pair of phones that are perfectly serviceable for voice and text communications because a couple of apps that are actually important are refusing to update on iOS 16.
I’ll admit that it’s been a good run for an iPhone 8 Plus that never got a battery swap and was acquired a couple of years before the COVID pandemic.
Even though the battery is certainly showing it’s age now, it’s rarely far from some charging mechanism so the fact that it rarely lasts more than 4-5 hours is hardly an inconvenience. And not having a phone payment on top of the princely sums I’m already forking over to AT&T has been quite a joy these past couple of years.
Sadly, Apple noticed this and like one particular character from “Idiocracy”, they really like money.
And that means my hand’s getting forced to do an upgrade I neither desire nor really can afford on the two iPhone 8 Plus phones we have in play…mine and Alex’s.
I was reasonably sure which models I was planning to upgrade the phones to but it still helps to actually be able to put one’s hands on the physical phones and play with them to make sure that they’re going to be an appropriate choice.
That was all I really wanted to do when I walked into the AT&T Store on Capital Blvd as we were killing time whilst both of us were in the area for a couple of hours.
The first thing they want you do when you walk in is sign up using the AT&T app so that you can be queued up for the random person to harass you in the guise of “helping” you. Seeing as they were unlikely to have any more expert knowledge of what I was interested in than I already had through my own research, I didn’t bother with that.
I’m also not a fan of my name being put on a huge screen for anyone to see. One of the little quirks of growing up in a military family is that you tend to jealously guard your privacy because you grow up having so darned little of it, especially when you live on base!
Then there’s the other slight problem…remember that the whole point of this stupid exercise in having money I can ill afford to spare extracted from me anyway is that apps are now failing to update under iOS 16 and in a lot of cases they stop working entirely.
That’s what happened to the Chick Fil-A app (but at least I have a workaround with the iPad that still runs that app even though I’ve got to look hors categorie stupid trying to capture the QR code with that massive tablet which is larger than the usual ones!).
Guess which other app fell victim to forced obsolescence?
The AT&T one these people want you to use to sign in!
Anywho, Alex and I wander amongst the tables and I’m able to compare the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max to my current phone (whose large size is useful for someone with huge hands and fingers!) and let Alex play with an iPhone 16e which is identical in size to the 17e I have in mind for him.
All was going well until one of the sales people decided they were bored and came round to offer help that was never solicited.
The way he did it was rather interesting as he was looking down and kind of quietly mumbled something I can only assume was some sort of greeting.
My hearing is good but it’s not that bloody good and so I asked him to try again with something that was intelligible in the English language.
So imagine my surprise when he gets a bit huffy with a “I’ll just leave you alone if I’m not intelligent enough” in a much clearer and completely intelligible tone of voice.
That’s not what I said nor was it close to what I meant!
Mumbled and not intelligible is not equal to “stupid”…it means what you said could not be understood and that looking downward as you’re mumbling is hardly helpful when the person you’re talking to is trying to read your lips as a backup mechanism to understand what you said.
At least he quickly fixed his attitude and we had a much more pleasant conversation afterward until Alex and I left for a nearby library to camp out.
My hope was to go ahead and order the upgrades online and pick them up at the AT&T store at White Oak in a couple of hours. Even though each phone was shown as “in stock” at White Oak, the website would change it to a random and different location and I just couldn’t work round that bug. I suspect their website was capturing my location information and refusing to believe that I’d actually want to pick them up at a different location.
Fine.
So I figured I’d just stop by White Oak as it was about halfway between where I would be and where I was going and just quickly grab the phones there.
Alex and I walk into the store which seemed to be completely bereft of any customers. That should bode well for employing Danny Kaye’s strategy of “get in, get on with it, get it over with, and get out!”
I didn’t even have time for them to try the “sign into the kiosk” spiel with a phone that couldn’t do it anyway before the first salesperson slithers my way…and the first words out of his mouth was “hey, there!”
This person may well be closer to my age than the usual teenagers who turn up at my door and abuse all of the rules of propriety and etiquette but it doesn’t mean I’m any more amenable to it from someone who is a complete stranger.
I invite him to choose a more respectful greeting and his considered response was to walk away and then send the lady who was probably close to his age.
Wouldn’t you know it…she hits me with “hey, there” as well and I likewise invite her to also choose a more polite and respectful greeting. I ask her to do so four times which is three more than I’m usually of a mind to owing to the fact that I do believe that the ladies generally are more respectful and courteous than the average man.
And in this case, I was quite wrong. She decided to try to double down on it and try force me to deal with her when she can’t even be bothered to properly cleanse the way between us. She was right, we couldn’t “get past that” because if business is to be successful between two parties, it has to be a relationship of mutual respect and understanding and she’d established neither.
The honour of proper and respectful dealing really matters to a Hungarian as does the deadly insult of presuming familiarity where none yet exists.
So she heads off in a huff whilst complaining somewhat loudly to the blue shirt who I presume is the “manager” who decides to come over and take a shot at me and I don’t think I have to tell you what the first two words out of *HIS* mouth was.
At this point, it’s hard to hold the first two truly accountable for their grievous display of unwarranted familiarity and disrespect.
Whilst I do think they’d be better served in a position where the public is far from them with their ideas on courtesy, one can hardly expect better of them if their manager can’t be bothered to have a decent understanding of courtesy and respect and what rank is more appropriate to a lack of them. If the manager trains them poorly, that’s at least a slight mitigation in their favour.
But for the manager, there is no such forgiveness. He has not only brought shame upon himself and his employer, he’s done ill by those entrusted to his authority by not properly preparing them to be successful in the roles for which they’ve been employed.
”That’s strike three.”
I turn on my heel and quietly tell Alex that we’re leaving and we start walking toward the exit.
Initially the manager seems to be inclined to let us leave in peace which lasted as long as it took for me to get to the door, walk through it, and motion to Alex to follow me out the door.
That was the moment when the manager decided to dramatically escalate the situation quite unnecessarily.
I hadn’t yelled nor did I use anything approaching profanity. Just those three words and turning on my heel to leave.
There was absolutely no reason for that person to close the distance to the door from halfway across the store and loudly tell me that “we’re not servicing you here” (in point of fact, you hadn’t serviced me at all and I’ve generally avoided the White Oak location because apparently things have not improved since I was last there before the COVID pandemic).
Then he loudly demanded that I close the door.
Just one problem with that plan…Alex still hadn’t made it through the door! What does that imbecile think I’m going to do…leave my younger son in his clutches as some sort of hostage?!?
He repeated his demand and I manage to get Alex to start walking toward me and then Alex stops right at the metal strip at the door’s threshold and turns to the manager and tries to do the classic Alex move of being nice and trying to say goodbye properly.
The look on that manager’s face and his angry demeanour that was completely unwarranted convinced me that was a completely lost cause and I tell Alex to go ahead and keep on going because “he’s not worth it”.
At this point, I’m so angry bordering on nauseous that there’s a small part of me hoping that manager tries something even more dumb than he’s already done multiple times in this brief encounter.
Fortunately, he made the one wise choice he had to allow Alex to leave the threshold of the door without further hindrance and we head off to get Alex some lunch across the bridge to the Cook Out for one of Alex’s favourite meals but at this point I’m upset enough that if I try to eat anything, I’m going to truly regret it and likely anyone in the immediate vicinity will as well.
The gentleman at the register takes one look at the two of us and says “good afternoon, welcome to Cook Out’.
I couldn’t help myself…I smiled and thanked him profusely for really getting my day back on track! 🙂
Alex gives his order to the gentlemen at the register who pulls two cups from the stack and then asks if I’m ordering anything. I politely decline but he goes ahead and lets us keep the cup anyway. I give him the abbreviated version of the above and ask if I’m truly the person who is mad and in the wrong and he wholeheartedly agreed that I was in the right.
I tried offering singing his praises to his manager for his efforts to brighten what had turned into a rather stormy day emotionally but he smiled and assured me that this is how he is all the time. I genuinely don’t doubt it! One didn’t need to be an empath to know the truth of what he was saying (but it helps!). 🙂
Tamir on the AT&T customer service line about a hour later was truly appalled at the tale I just shared with you but admitted that he was hardly surprised by it. I have no idea what he can do to ensure that location is sanctioned for their poor behaviour but if there’s something that can be done, I got the impression that he’d move heaven and earth to do so.
At least there’s someone at AT&T on the customer service side of things who understands the proper respect one should have for their customers.
But as much fun as watching Katie’s phone bouncing between the Sheetz and I-440 for hours on end wasn’t, it certainly wasn’t as dreadful as going to the White Oak AT&T store was that afternoon.
Next time, I’ll just go to the one near where Cary Towne Centre used to stand…of all the AT&T locations round here, it’s the only one I’ve genuinely never had a problem with in terms of respect and customer service.
If the people at White Oak weren’t such a lost cause, I’d suggest they’d do well to go round there and get some pointers on how to do the job properly. But then they’d have to admit they were in the wrong pretty much from the off and I think that’s a step they’re just not capable of taking which is unfortunate for anyone else who is unfortunate enough to step through their door.