Dancing With bMobile

It happens. People lose mobile phones; they are dropped and picked up by passing strangers or are taken by less passive strangers. One way or the other, people lose their phones.

Last Friday, I lost mine. I searched high, I searched low, I searched the spectrum in between. I checked the refrigerator, the dog (who did not ring when I called the number) and the yard. It was gone - and the ring could not be heard except through the receiver of another phone. After a few calls, I started getting my 'busy' message from the phone.

Someone was using the phone. Thus, someone had the phone and wasn't interested in who was calling them. Therefore it was highly probable that I would not get my phone back and it was time to move past denial and directly into acceptance.

Killing Access To The Phone

I called 824-TSTT to report the phone missing and have it turned off. I got their wonderfully confusing system which conspires against anyone talking to anyone else. Clearly this is to keep people busy so that TSTT doesn't have to work. Somewhere in the automated messages, I fumbled into the right area and spoke to a real live human being. I can't tell you how I got there.

The call to TSTT allowed me to get the phone switched off - though they wanted my passport number to do so and when I gave them the number they said it wasn't it. I tried my father's passport number. No dice. I dug out my old passport and gave them the number - and that was it.

Lesson learned: Don't use a passport number for something for TSTT. If and when the number changes, you may not have the right one to give them. Fortunately, I keep my old passports.

Also, I was told I would need a police report to go to TSTT with if I wanted the same number again. I've kept my father's old number alive (it's 10 years old), and people have it. So - a police report. But not on a Saturday. I would do that on Sunday when the world is allegedly more sober and less violent.

My Contacts!

My old (and missing) Nokia had come with some software that allowed me to backup the contents of the phone to my PC - and being a stickler for that, I did so. Unfortunately, due to someone at Nokia lacking blood flow in their right frontal lobe of their brain, you can't access the backed up files without a phone. And it has to be a Nokia. Thus, the backup of all my contacts is still on my hard drive with no way to access it unless I decide to spend time and reverse engineer their software - which their lawyers may frown heavily about. Thus, I would have to start from scratch, as I have.

Bad Nokia.

Enjoy The Rest of the Weekend

For the most part, the rest of the weekend was peaceful and enjoyable. The woman who says we're exclusive but doesn't think she's my girlfriend (!) is out for a week so I had the weekend to myself and did not miss the ringing. I did feel guilty about not calling her before she left, but I did leave some messages explaining the situation. Of course, she probably doesn't have her phone roaming and she's as communicative on Farcebook and via email as a Trinidad and Tobago Senator.

The South Oropouche Police Station

On Sunday, I took a casual breakneck drive to the South Oropouche Station that was slowed by the work on the bridge at Mosquito Creek. I think that the people working on that project take a special joy in having people see them work as they assure it with the amount of traffic they have been holding up for weeks.

Arriving at the station, I see a pickup and a car loaded with people - speaking passionately about something. This doesn't bode well. I go into the station and lo! Only one person ahead of me, and I know the Corporal from previous visits. I wait patiently; he wonders whatever happened about the pole I pulled out and brought to the station last time in the bed of my pickup (another story) and realizing that I was not an emergency situation, he continued dealing with his situation with the people outside. They had been in an accident and 4 people were injured. All were walking and talking though some limps were apparent. But they wanted the Corporal to call an ambulance when they were in vehicles that were drivable. The hospital is less than 20 minutes away, even with the ongoing work on the bridge (it's a Sunday).

I tell the Corporal that there's no law against being stupid. He stares at me, non-committal. Smart. He probably knew I would write about it.

We go through the details of the phone. He hands me a report within moments, telling me that people in Trinidad and Tobago 'just not as honest as they used to be.' I thank him for his assistance, wisdom and so forth - and head back home.

Monday: bMobile, Gulf City

Knowing that there was a bMobile outlet in Gulf City, I headed there. Walking in, I heard a vocal conversation going on about the Blink (internet access) contracts and hopped in on that. That done, we got down to business - and I was surprised and disenchanted to find out that the store is just a bMobile dealer, and that I needed to go to bMobile in San Fernando. Lunch, then... into the congested heart of San Fernando through the plaque filled arteries leading to it.

Monday, bMobile, Library Corner, San Fernando

Having parked in a parking area for $5 an hour, I rush to the bMobile outlet at what is called Library Corner - and awkward reference to the library there when it's really just a staging point to get almost anywhere in Trinidad from San Fernando. Darting through the taxis, vagrants and assorted travelers, I get to the glass door to see the line pressed against the door. As is a Trinidad custom, a young woman had grown roots in the doorway and was immune to polite requests for her to move. A less-than-polite request framed as politely as possible did get her attention and, oddly, caused her to smile and move.

I entered the mayhem of bMobile. A plethora of signs, decidedly designed to confuse, greeted me. None of  the allegedly helpful signs told me where to go when one wanted to get a new phone with the same number. I bumped into a man in the crowded space who was under the signs. He wore a TSTT name badge. I asked him where to go for my particular issue. He hands me a number - B308. I look up. I see A129 and H-Something and X-something and... B389.

He tells me to wait. I watch the numbers. The B389 changes to A-something. Then H-Something. Then B390. This system, too, is meant to confuse. Someone at TSTT/bMobile worked very hard on the system with the core requirement being, "Confuse, disillusion and upset our customers."

Their system works perfectly when you consider that requirement. Unfortunately, most people don't think that it is designed to do that and think that their confusion, disillusionment and rising blood pressure are simply anecdotal. That's how good these people designed the system.

I ask someone else whether I should be upstairs or downstairs. They say I should look upstairs; I go. A calm voice from their system with a vaguely Midwestern American accent randomly says numbers and lines. I ask the guard; he's busy cleaning his curiously long thumbnail but pauses to tell me that it could be upstairs or downstairs. I thank him for telling me what was already apparent as a matter of being benign. He tells me it wasn't a problem.

Back downstairs - I ask the fellow who gave me the number. He tells me to wait downstairs. I wait. Time passes; I look at potentially new phones that are all but sold out. One man is waiting with a number so he can simply buy a netbook and 2 phones. Since bMobile/TSTT has enough money, they make him wait almost as long as I (he waited 3 hours eventually).

A vagrant comes in and breaks the monotony by demanding to buy a sim card. Two large women with batons dwarf him; he quiets down. When he finally gets in to buy his sim card, he has no ID so he can't buy one. He's upset and lets everyone know. We ignore him. Some of us move away. I watch him curiously, avoiding eye contact. After having been ignored for about 20 minutes, he walks out in a huff and announces to everyone at Library Corner that bMobile doesn't care about its customers. I arch an eyebrow. I could vote for that guy.

After 3 and a half hours of standing around and chatting with people who are trapped by bad customer service, I hear a small voice call for 308. It calls again. In disbelief, I call back '308?'. A woman behind the counter says 'Yes, 308'. I apologize and tell her it was hard to hear her. She shouts '308!' in my face. I shout, "I'm 308" back. After 3 and a half hours, the polite exterior has crumbled and fallen to the ground at my feet like so much litter.

I give her the report, tell her the phone I want and she gets busy. She then directs me to the cashier upstairs to pay - which I do. I come back downstairs, she hands me the phone and tells me it will be activated before the close of business.

I leave. Close of business passes. I try calling. The phone is set one way for non-payment of a bill. A bill that, had the woman at the counter told me about, I would have paid.

Tuesday: bMobile, St. James Street.

I go into San Fernando again, this time to St. James Street, and pay my bill. I mention to the cashier what had happened the day before and she shook her head. I was in and out of the St. James Street bMobile/TSTT within 15 minutes - I had timed it perfectly. 

The cashier said it should take an hour for my phone to re-activate - and if it didn't, I should dial * 100. 

An hour passed. Someone who had been calling me said that my phone was disconnected. I said, "That can't be right - it was set one way, therefore I should at least be receiving calls!".

Wrong. When I dial *100 after the hour, I get a woman who was exceedingly nice while attempting to do everything in her power to explain in detail while being vague. She was gifted. After all of this time invested in the new phone, though, I was immune to her talents and cut across her monologue: "Listen, I understand everything you have said - but all I really want to know is when my phone will work. I spent 3 and a half hours at Library Corner yesterday and they said this was fixed. I want this fixed. Please find me someone who can fix it."

Response: "Can you hold?"
Response to response: "Yes."

10 minutes later - my phone counted it out for me - she gets back on the line and says, "It's fixed. You'll need to turn off your phone for 5 minutes and it will be re-activated."

So said, so done.

From Friday evening to Tuesday afternoon. Why was that so hard?