Cell Phone Shopping

[Note: I have since purchased a phone that did not exist at the time.]
Sales people find me fascinating. Depending on their capacity for challenge, I am either the best or worst customer ever. Here’s a paraphrased transcript of what happened when I went cell phone shopping earlier this week:

[Scene opens with Lake circling a Verizon kiosk in the mall warily. Keeping just enough distance to avoid attracting one of the two bored sales clerks, he quickly scans all the display models. Having circled twice, he approaches a small clump of Blackberries, head down, and starts to test them.]

Sales clerk: “Can I help you find something?”

Lake: [still examining Blackberries, typing out trial sentences on their tiny keyboards] “As a matter of fact, I was wondering if you had any PC cards for connecting to your G3 network.”

Sales clerk: “Any what?”

Lake: “It’s a chip you can put in a computer to get data service. I know Verizon makes them.”

Sales Clerk: [pause] “Oh, you mean the laptop cards?”

Lake: “Yes.”

Sales Clerk: “Do you know what size port you need?”

Lake: “I’m pretty sure I want a PCMCIA II model.”

Sales Clerk: “Ok, I don’t know what that means.” [Retrieves two boxes of cards] “Big or skinny?”

Lake: [looks up for the first time] “Big.”

Sales Clerk: “Ok. Well, the data plan for this is about $50.00 per month. That gets you the phone number, and unlimited data.”

Lake: “It gets a phone number? Can you use it to make calls?”

Sales Clerk: [long pause] “Uhm. I don’t know. Maybe?”

Sales Clerk #2: [looks up from her magazine with raised eyebrows]

Lake: “Hmmm. Ok, well, you said that it’s $50.00 per month. Is that the only option? Aren’t there usually tiers?”

Sales Clerk: “Well, with phones, yeah, but I think there’d be a chart for that in here if this did.”

Lake: “Uhm. Ok. Well, let’s try this another way then. First off, how much is this card by itself again?”

Sales Clerk: “$50.00”

Lake: “No, I mean, the cost of the card, not the service plan.”

Sales Clerk: “$50.00”

Lake: “The phone cost and per month usage fee are exactly the same?”

Sales Clerk: “I think so.”

Lake: [pause] “Ok. Well, let’s look at the other options then. Am I right in thinking that you can plug one of these…” [gestures at Blackberries and Treo’s] “…into a PC with a USB cable and accomplish the same thing?”

Sales Clerk #2: [slides in, cutting off Sales Clerk #1 who wanders over to the other side of the booth.] “Yes, you can do that. You just need to have the install CD set up.”

Lake: [more or less fails to notice that the sales person has had a sudden change of gender and job ability] “Ok. That’s probably a worthwhile option then. But I can’t help but notice that all of these…” [gestures at Blackberries and Treo’s] “…totally suck.”

Sales Clerk #2: [eyebrows jump for half a second at the flippant dismissal of the entire rack of high end phones]

Lake: “Do you have any phones more like this?” [pulls out his old Sidekick II] “The keyboard on this thing is easily two to three times the size of any of the ones on these. The form factor is excellent, and in general I think it’s an amazing phone. To be honest, the one and only reason I’m here is because you guys have a much, much better data network, if we can find something to use it with.”

Sales Clerk #2: “So you want something with a bigger keyboard?”

Lake: “That sounds like an excellent place to start!”

Sales Clerk #2: “We do have this phone…” [pulls out a phone with a good sized keyboard concealed within a sideways-opening flip-up]

Lake: “Actually, that looks just about perfect. Do you mind if I hold it?” [takes phone, types a test sentence] “This is great. And this can use the G3 network?”

Sales Clerk #2: “Yes, but…”

Lake: “But it doesn’t have a full internet browser. It just does mobile format pages.”

Sales Clerk #2: [pause] “Right.”

Lake: “Ok, never mind that then. So pretty much, you don’t have any phones I’d be interested in?”

Sales Clerk #2: “Well, there is one thing…” [pulls out a pamphlet] “We could special order one of these.” [points to a VX6700]

Lake: [reads page thoroughly] “Actually, this might just work. But I’d really need to hold one to find out. Could you get me one to try?”

Sales Clerk #2: “We special ordered one once a while ago. I could see about doing it again. That model is $500.”

Lake: “Can it make phone calls too?

Sales Clerk #2: [brief, stunned silence, followed by a quick recovery] “It sure can!”

Lake: “It’s probably asking for a lot, but I’d be very unhappy if I couldn’t get data reception in two very specific places. Is there any way that I could test this out before I bought it?

Sales Clerk #2: “Actually, you can try it out for 15 days.”

Lake: “That’s more than enough. So you think you can get one of these?”

Sales Clerk #2: “I can try. Can I get your phone number?”

Lake: “Absolutely.”

Sales Clerk #2: “I’ll let you know, hopefully soon.”

Lake: “Great, thanks!”



And then, a few hours later, a friend more in the know about this sort of thing than I am informed me I should just wait a few weeks until the VX6800 comes out and just try that instead. Which I now plan to do.

That story should pretty much explain why I have a great deal of sympathy for the sales people who have to deal with me. I feel better knowing I’m just as bad when I don’t need sales people at all. Case in point: last weekend, I bought a new audio cabinet from Target, drove to Home Depot, bought some lumber, drove home, opened the furniture box, threw away the top shelf and support beams, cut replacements for them out of the wood to meet my specifications, painted them to match the original set, and assembled it according to my revised directions. Elapsed time: two hours. Out of the box, the original cabinet was rated to support 20 lbs on top. I’ve got 80 lbs sitting on top of the revised version, and it looks great.

I am told this is not how normal people go furniture shopping, but that just sounds silly.