Since starting at Microsoft I have found myself spending more time on email than ever before... so much so that I now find myself wanting a way to check my work email anytime/anywhere... the perfect job for a smartphone... so the hunt has been on and thus far I've encountered at least one company that just doesn't want to keep me as a customer.

Having been with one particular wireless carrier for the last 6 years so figured I should give them the first chance to serve my needs... and after a walk into their store 3 weeks ago I found a store so busy that they had someone taking names down so as to make sure that people were helped in the order they arrived... after waiting 15 minutes I opted to walk over to the store of a competitor where I found no lines and plenty of eager service.

After having my questions answered there I returned to the first store to almost immediately have one of the managers take note of me and just as soon as a sales person was available... make sure that they helped me first.

During my earlier visit to the store I found that the demo unit of the phone I was most interested in was non-functional and mentioned this to the salesperson who told me that someone earlier in the week had deliberately spilled some water on it and that a new unit was on order.

Seems reasonable... so I opted to stop back again.

During a following weekend I walked in again and again the unit was still down.

Today I returned, ~3 weeks after the first visit and after seeing the unit still down when one of the employees asked my name so I could be added to 'the list' I asked when/if the phone in question was going to be replaced and made quite clear that I'd been in the store several times during the last 3 weeks to which I was told that she was unaware of the situation and tell her manager.

Expecting some kind of response from on high I hung around, tried out a few more of the smartphones and watched the employee with the list... who continued her duties of taking down names and in over 15 minutes of watching, never appeared to have approached one of the two managers I could see on duty.

After having spent some time being less than thrilled by the other phones and still having not being approached yet (as I'd expected) about the long running defective phone, I leaned against one of the corners and put on a slightly indignant look. ~2 minutes later one of the managers came out and asked if she could help me or the woman near me looking at phones.

While the other woman needed no assistance I said "Any idea when you are going to be getting in a functional ____ demo unit as this one has been down for at least 3 weeks now?"

Rather than a professional "I'm so sorry, here, let me run back to the stock room and immediately replace that unit with a sellable unit"... she shrugged and said "Yes I know, we put in a ticket..."

A bit shocked at the... less than sincere response I asked: "Why can't you just replace it with a unit from stock?" to which I was given a shrug of the shoulders and nothing more to which I responded with a laugh, a smile while saying "You guys just love giving me even more reasons to take my business elsewhere don't you?" before making my way to the door.

The sad thing in all of this... is there are two big reasons I haven't immediately jumped ship to another provider... the most obvious is that none of the other carriers have a smartphone that I think I'd be content with (no iPhone for me as my thumbs are too big for it and I'm not about to pay ~$700 for a Mac so that I can experiment with a custom app or two (though I'm more than willing to let anyone drop a (working) Mac at my door for such a purpose)).

The second reason I stick with my present carrier is because I know for a fact that they have reasonable coverage in Day County, South Dakota where I deer hunt in November... though a quick solution to this issue would be a switch to another provider and the purchase of pre-paid phone so that I have communication while chasing Bambi.

Anyone want to chime in with their provider of choice and the phone they think I should go with?

Read the complete post at http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/IHateLinux/~3/347165905/not-wanting-to-keep-me-as-customer.html