Cause to Pause

So, I called t-mobile yesterday because I am having some issues with my double whoop-dee-do G-1. All things considered, it is a great phone. Anything that can get me the phone number and dial McKenna’s Wings while I wait at a stoplight has potential. They got Latitude working on it, so now any sense of privacy I thought I had has been taken by people chanting “do no evil”.
I am over being honked off at not having wifi at Starbucks w/out paying an extra $10. If I add that in, my plan before taxes will be about $85/month. Still $300/yr cheaper than UseyourAmextobuystereoequipment At&t. (yep, still bitter).
The new issue has to do with the secondary and third-ary email accounts I have on my phone. You gotta have a gmail account to turn the G-1 on. PERIOD. Fortunately, I had one from days gone by since I am a collector. However, those of us that use hotmail, yahoo, etc. are kinda stuck with having what was our primary email now the secondary. I like Hotmail. I’m a rebel.
Except I had forgotten what a HUGE pain Pop3 was. My old phone was WM6. So if I read the hotmail there, it was marked read in my inbox, or on my laptop. Beautiful. Like IMAP, only not.
With the G-1, my personal gmail account is fine, Hotmail is what it is (they blame MS proprietary yada yada). The issue is with mail from hotmail and my secondary gmail account (which is really pulling my work emails from a NetSol server). Those emails come in whenever they darn well want to and may or may not let me know they have arrived. I hate part-time help.
So I called t-mobile and just as a conversation starter mentioned my frustration about the “no wifi at Starbucks” incident. Turns out there has been a “company wide memo” and “a redraft of the internal literature to clarify hotspot connectivity”. Even the reps were unaware of this issue. The memo and policy were instituted Feb 10, five days after my post. I’m just sayin’……
So, once we got to the email issue, it went upline, tech people were called. Engineers were flown in from NASA. Etc.
Since yesterday morning I have gotten three, count ‘em three calls from the SAME English speaking t-mobile customer rep inquiring as to the current status of my service and anything else I have noticed. They told me they have already done one software update (in the last 24 hrs) and are working dilligently to isolate the problem and produce another update. I told them to post the issue here and see what happens.
So the reality is:
1. They know there is an issue.
2. They don’t know how to fix it.
3. But they are letting me know this and what steps they are taking to correct it.

Which brings me back to expectations. I am a happy t-mobile customer again. Problem isn’t fixed, but at least I am not in the dark. I really appreciate the rep going out of her way to keep me informed. I am sure she is very busy with me being just one of probably DOZENS of G-1 owners. Add that to the four or five of you reading this (unless I use Feedburner, and then the stats are wrong as per Derek). So, it is nice to be treated like you matter.
Might be a lesson in there…..

And yes, I still feel counter culture and rebellious for not buying an iphone. Ha!

1. Our neighbor Al. My wife and I were out walking Tam the Wonderdog recently. We went through a different part of the neighborhood and met a neighbor who lives about a mile away. He happened to be out in his yard. After some pleasant chatting, he invited us in for a tour of his exotic fruit farm. We left with star fruits, Indian limes (which look like lemons), lemons that looked like oranges, and some itty bitty Thai peppers. Having been to Thailand, I know how dangerous these things can be!
It was just such a pleasant experience-and educational as well. We learned how to graft plants.

2. Widgetbox.com. Handy little tool for making different kinds of widgets. I made a calendar widget for our home page. Pulls a month’s worth of published events from our AccessACS link. Took me all of about five minutes. (Another Shameless Plug for Scott Dixon who gave me that link.)

3. This post by Seth Godin. Especially this line:
”The story you tell is far more important than the way you tell it. Don’t worry so much about being cool, and worry a lot more about resonating your story with my worldview. If you don’t have a story, then a great show isn’t going to help much.”
Ultimately, it is all about the content. Or as my father used to say “Don’t try to make silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”

4. This post by Kem Meyer. She writes a blog called Less Clutter, Less Noise on communication within the church.

5. This guy:
                  
Every once in a while, someone like Miles here drops by my office just to say hi. Doesn’t want anything. Doesn’t need anything. Just wants to asks how things are going and if they can help.
I hope you have a couple of people like this in your life.

Potentially a weekly post of a few nuggets gleaned over the week:

1. I stole this idea from Scott Fillmer and his Friday Feet posts. Seems like a good idea and use of time management to give yourself a post topic on a specific day. I have this set to publish Friday morning. In whatever form it is at that time. This should be fun.
2. Volunteers and guest workstations. One of the things we are working toward is setting up a resource office. If someone needs to get out of the house to do job search, they can have a place to go where they won’t feel alone. We set up an unused office with two refreshed WinXP machines and decent sized desks. One of our committee chairs took her new committee members in there, walked each of them through the member sign-in screen and showed them how to access their personal records through AccessACS. I know the excercise was successful because the following day I had a slew of change requests and calendar updates.
3. T-mobile G-1. I like it. I feel so counter cultural and rebellious not getting an iPhone. For some reason, by NOT buying an Apple product, I feel like I am “sticking it to the man”. Note: You also might want to read this post.
4. Matt Irvine on Facebook and your church. Add this guy to your “feeds to read” list.