Hundredth Post.

I'm typing this on a pretty nice iMac. sub-pixel smoothing is a little known trick, though, which can make any LED-lit display look nice. Anyway, I digress.

I wanted to use this space to talk for a second about a quasi-lame experience I'm having with Geek Squad/Best Buy. I've been reading a lot of reviews of these services, and it's been alarming, to put it mildly. Some people have hellish-looking times trying to get their cell phones fixed, which is what I've been waiting on.

It looked like my phone had randomly decided to become water-laden overnight. No more touch screen for me. Having the Geek Squad "Insurance" plan (it's apparently not really insurance, but a service that, by your paying into it, allows you to get repairs on your expensive device. weird?) I thought, "ok, I'll just take this in and get it fixed."

Upon getting there, they told me I was eligible for upgrade, but I was not really willing to pay more money for a phone just slightly more behind the curve than my current one. And I elected to go for service on the phone. They said "do you have your old phone?" and I said "yeah," which is good, because for some reason, there's a $150 deposit on a loaner phone. Which wouldn't be so bad if they loaned me an EVO. But they don't even loan you a smartphone, apparently. This is colossal cheapness, which Best Buy, with no competition, does NOT need to employ.

Since it was the middle of the day, I was helped out relatively quickly, unlike a lot of the wait-times that people report. But like many others, they told me that my repair would be "expedited" and that the repair center often has parts for the more popular devices in stock. So I said "what, then, about a week if it's expedited?" and the guy was like "yeah." So I left, with the order number to track my repair. "Cool," i thought, "back to normal next week."

Nope.

See, this repair center is in Texas, and this Best Buy is in Delaware. The phone (thankfully stripped of anything that could be stolen off of it, which is all in my possession) probably was shipped out of the store promptly. But the order tracking on Geek Squad (the separate Best Buy business responsible for already-bought electronic repairs) didn't accurately reflect this. It just said it was "awaiting shipment" for about six days.

I should note, of the three or four calls I made to Best Buy, I only really felt okay about the first one. The guy sounded nice and helpful. The next day, I called once in the morning and asked about the status, and about 4 hours later called again, but the same (middle-aged-sounding) woman answered both times. The second time, she gave me a lot of lip about how I was wasting my time by calling more than once a day asking about the status, since they don't have much more information than what I can see. Which prompts me to think, "then what good ARE you doing?"

Long story short, at the moment, my phone's repair status is making progress. On the weekly, it seems. Lots of the complaints people post about on the Best Buy forums are probably legitimate, since Best Buy absolutely makes it sound they'll just open up a box in the back to hand you a new phone if your Best-Buy-bought-and-insured one breaks for any old reason. I definitely wasn't expecting to have to use my old phone for any more than a week.

But really, the problem seems to be, that people don't have very much patience. I mean, yes, getting notified of your email on-the-go is great, and for many, helps them perform their livelihoods (and really, work in general) efficiently and quickly. But these people who have smartphones, which fail, then refuse to accept the consequences of it, are really just over-dependent on these devices. And that, despite what anyone may say, is in their own hands to control.