Here I go again.

Here I go complaining about customer service again. I guess having been in that industry for my entire working career, it's hard for me to overlook crummy service.

So, Chris and I got new cell phones a couple weeks ago. We didn't change providers, just exchanged our old phones for new phones. After several people had inquired about my lack of response to their text messages, I realized this weekend that my text messaging had not been working since we got the new phones. No big deal, just call Verizon and have them fix it, right? Noooo. Chris spent 30 minutes on hold and talking to 2 different techs this morning as they went through several troubleshooting steps only to be told we needed to take it in to a store to have a technician look at it. We go to a store this afternoon and "sign in" using a kiosk to be queued up to see a technician. They only have one technician working, so it took almost 30 minutes for us to be called. At the counter, Chris explains the problem and the guy doesn't do much of anything. He just quickly writes a ticket saying he'd add it to a queue to have a technician look at it and we could come back after 8pm to find out the diagnosis. You can imagine our expression. We just waited in queue to wait in queue again? Huh? I quickly pipe up and let him know this is a brand new phone and it hasn't worked since I got it. He responds telling us we should go see one of the Customer Service Reps and just have them replace the phone because it would be quicker. Quicker. Right. So, he readds us to the queue so we can be seen by someone else. 20 minutes later (while we watch 3 guys not helping anyone), we're called. We hardly finish telling him the story when he tells us he can't replace the phone if we don't have the box it came in. The box? Why would we have the box with us when we thought we were just trying to get text messaging fixed? After some "polite" discussion back and forth, he ended up replacing the phone. So, 4 people, 4 queues, and an hour and half later - I have the ability to text message again. Am I crazy in thinking this is a poor way of handling customer service?

In lighter news - we were watching some of the all time most popular viral videos tonight on internet tv. Micah and Katie really got a kick out of the "Ok go - Here it goes again" video. If you haven't seen it, it's well worth a watch. Not only is it hilarious, it's quite brilliantly done. It's funny to watch two little kids enjoy it as much as us. As soon as it was over, Katie piped up and said "Again, mommy!"