yeeland’s blog

First, I should point out that I've been with Cingular/AT&T since I graduated high school and I haven't really had any complaints about their service up until this point.  Maybe I just have low standards or don't know any better since a lot of my friends and co-workers don't have that high of an opinion of AT&T and if they were in my shoes, they would have more than likely switched to T-Mobile or Sprint at some point in the last 6 years.

But the crap I had to put up with this morning was just unacceptable.  It makes absolutely no sense to me.

As we all know, the highly anticipated iPhone 3g was released three days ago.  A buddy of mine upgraded from his original iPhone on the first day it came out.  Because I've been such a loyal AT&T customer all these years, I won't qualify for a fully-subsidized upgrade until October.  I could pay an extra $200 to upgrade now, but I cannot justify $200 for not waiting 3 months for a new phone.  This is because sometime last February, I got a Cingular 3125 because at that time, my old Motorola's battery was so terrible at holding a charge that the battery would drain if I used it while it was plugged in.  Long story short, I can't upgrade for awhile unless I want to pay a $200 premium.

My buddy who upgraded decided to hand down his old iPhone to me, so I can at least use iPhone 2.0 until I can fully upgrade in October.

Now here's where it gets interesting...

When I tried to activate this used and unsubsidized phone through iTunes, it asked me to renew a two-year contract.  A two-year contract for a previous generation, used, unsubsidized phone.

Must be a mistake, right?  There's no reason for AT&T to require a new contract because whatever money they might have lost through revenue sharing with Apple must have been recouped already, right?

I called up AT&T customer service to make sense of this.  After putting me on hold for 15 minutes (not terrible, I suppose), the customer service rep told me that I shouldn't have to renew a 2-year contract to activate an used phone that wasn't even subsidized to begin with.  I asked if this would change my upgrade eligibility in October.  He said no.  Then he told me to go to an AT&T retail store to make sure that everything is done correctly.

Great news, right?

Wrong.

This morning, I went to the AT&T retail store and told them I wanted to activate an original iPhone.  This is basically the conversation that took place:

Me: Hi, I'd like to activate an original iPhone.

AT&T: Oh for that, you can activate that through iTunes.

Me: It's asking me to sign a new 2-year contract.

AT&T: That's correct.  You have to sign a new 2-year contract in order to activate your phone.

Me: I called up customer service and they said I didn't.

AT&T: Well, customer service is wrong.

Me: Suppose I wanted to upgrade to the new iPhone 3g under the subsidized price.  When would I be able to upgrade if I signed this new 2-year deal?

AT&T: In two years.

Me: So let me get this straight... I have to sign a new 2-year contract in order to activate a USED phone that was NEVER SUBSIDIZED and I can't upgrade to the current generation phone for until 2010.

AT&T: That's correct.

So there you have it... you have to sign a dreaded two-year contract to use the original iPhone even though it is used and AT&T has no revenue to recoup from subsidies.  If anything, they have even more money to gain since they'd be getting money from both the original iPhone's original owner, who is still under contract, and the original iPhone's new owner, who still needs to get service from AT&T.

AT&T has a video telling you how to hand down your old iPhone.  At the end the narrator says,   "We're confident we'll have two very satisfied customers."

They're full of crap.

Update #1:

I called AT&T customer service again and instead of only talking to a business center rep, I got transferred to the iPhone department.  The rep there said that it was ridiculous for me to sign a new 2-year service agreement.  She told me to go ahead and go through with the service agreement in iTunes even though I'm not actually binding myself to AT&T for another 2 years.  I will also be able to upgrade to the iPhone 3g at the same time as before.

Hopefully, everything will work out according to what she says.  It is AT&T after all.

I was having dinner with Brian and the Tsangs tonight.

[2008-01-18: 16:16.17] Yeeland: are you done yet?

[2008-01-18: 16:16.19] Yeechi: no

[2008-01-18: 16:16.19] Yeeland:  are you done yet?

[2008-01-18: 16:16.20] Yeechi:  no

[2008-01-18: 16:16.21] Yeeland:  are you done yet?

[2008-01-18: 16:16.21] Yeechi:  no

[2008-01-18: 16:16.23] Yeeland:  are you done yet?

[2008-01-18: 16:16.23] Yeechi:  no

[2008-01-18: 16:16.25] Yeeland:  are you done yet?

[2008-01-18: 16:16.26] Yeechi:  no

[2008-01-18: 16:16.28] Yeeland:  are you done yet?

[2008-01-18: 16:16.28] Yeechi:  no

[2008-01-18: 16:16.29] Yeechi:  no

[2008-01-18: 16:16.38] Yeechi:  drat

[2008-01-18: 16:16.39] Yeeland:  HA

[2008-01-18: 16:16.39] Yeeland:  i didn't ask

[2008-01-18: 16:16.39] Yeeland:  i win

[2008-01-18: 16:16.40] Yeechi:  you didn't ask!

The point and say yes game at retreat has trained me well.

I had a pretty good past few days leading up to tonight.  Then this night decided to get crappy real fast.

A little background first:  I am fully Chinese.  I am fully Cantonese, too.

I've grown to accept the fact that when I meet new people, a good number of them will be thinking in the back of their minds, "What ethnicity is this guy?" and "What's the least offensive way that I can ask this?"  I'm used to questions like "Are you Filipino?  Vietnamese?  Indian??"  (Thank you, Matt's sister and Ryan's mom for that last one.)  I'm used to people making cracks about it like the time Jim tried to describe how some people in northern provinces of India looked (more Chinese than Indian) and how they, well.. "look like Yeeland."

But tonight was ridiculous.

I was heading home after watching a movie with Nick, Ellen, and Janice at Janice's house.  Coasting down the slope of a hill on 360, my RSX hummed quietly to me in 6th without the slightest hint of any potential problems on that very dark, yet very peaceful drive home with no one else on the road.

That is.. until my headlights swept across the seal of a camped Travis County Sheriff's Department cruiser.  Next thing I know I'm cited for going 72 in a 60.

72 pretty much sounds like 60 in 6th.  I was going downhill, too.  But... maybe I'm just not listening to her well enough.
 

After I got back to my apartment complex, I was ready to pull into the car port that has been assigned to me, care of a few extra dollars every month for rent.  And then I found a Red Ford Focus parked in my spot.

I retreated back to my 3rd floor apartment, too annoyed and too fatigued to put forth the effort of leaving a kind note that would normally inform the driver of said Ford Focus about the parking situation.

Plopping down on my couch, I studied the wonderful documents the officer gave me to show what I needed to do and by when.

And as I looked through all the boxes with all my personal information, I noticed something ridiculous.  In the "Race" box, the officer had indicated that I'm white.  (Or I assume that the "W" can only be white.)

What the heck?

I started thinking about the last few meals that I've had.

Wednesday Dinner: Ribeye (on sale at HEB)
Thursday Lunch: Sushi (c/o my manager, who is leaving the company)
Thursday Dinner: Omaha Steak wrapped with bacon (c/o Enoch)
Friday Lunch: Rudy's

And it's disgustingly early right now.  (4:45 AM).

I spent most of today outside working in 90-something degree weather.  If you happened to be at a Houston Metro Park & Ride and you saw a beige Corolla clogging the exit while also hooked up something on a pole via a few BNC cables, that was me.  It's so weird huddling over a laptop in a futile attempt to create a make-shift hood just to read the faint LCD that's dwarved by the still hot 5 PM sun.  All the while people leaving work are eyeing you and wondering what this fool in a t-shirt and jeans is doing.  (Yes, I was told to wear jeans.  For 90-something degree weather.)

But we still managed to cover almost half of the upgrades in Houston today.  On a combined total of 6 hours of sleep?  (2.5 by me, 3.5 by my co-worker)

We worked so hard that we didn't have lunch.  Wait, no... he worked so hard he didn't have lunch.  I got fed up with everything and took a 2:30 lunch.

---

We were so tired by the end of the day, we thought we deserved a good meal.  Before cooking my entree, the waiter brought it out to see if it was acceptable.  It spat at me.

 
Yeah... it was a really expensive dinner at Pappadeaux.

Yeah, so I'm not in Austin right now.  Work called, so now I'm sitting in a hotel room in Houston blogging at 2:45 AM because I didn't get to the hotel until about 15 minutes ago.

I got an email two days ago telling me that there was a chance that I might be sent out to Houston for a few days to help our technical support group re-flash (load new software) onto cameras that we have at a customer's site.

If you don't already know, this has very little to do with what I normally do.  I'm a software developer.  I sit at desk, design software, and program most of the day.

I don't go out to customer sites to fix things.

And what ends up happening?  I get sent out with another engineer to fix cameras that are scattered throughout Houston.

They weren't sure of when they were going to send us out.  There was talk of Thursday and Friday, so I figured... leave on Thursday, come back on Friday, right?  Wrong.  They tell me today that they're hoping we can get to Houston by Wednesday night and stay in a hotel for a couple of nights.

Because it was so last minute and I had plans for Wednesday night already, we end up leaving Austin around 10:45 PM and ended up arriving in Houston around 12:45 AM.  The company was going to rent out one car each for the other engineer and myself.  But because I'm not 25 yet, they end up only renting out one.  I offered my dad's Corolla as the car I'd drive, so they'll be reimbursing me for all that.

But this meant another thing.  We'd have to go to Sugar Land first, pick up the Corolla, and then caravan up to the hotel in Northwest Houston, which we got to at around 2:20 AM.  Not the best thing to have happen when you're meeting the customer at 8:30 AM.

So yeah... I'm pretty spent.  And tomorrow is gonna be a very caffeinated day.

At least there's a king-sized bed, sofa, and complimentary broadband... all for me. :-D