Manipulativeness for fun and profit.

Sprint representative: I'm sorry, ma'am, I do see that offer, but it is only available for new lines.
Me: So, what you're saying is that Sprint values the business of a new customer more than they value my business?
Sprint representative: ...

Things various Sprint representatives told me today which turned out not to be true: your current plan is the lowest rate we have, none of our plans have free text-messaging, we don't give out free phones, we don't have any leeway to offer you anything better.

I hate making phone calls, and I don't enjoy haggling with customer service reps. (I know some people actually enjoy calling around and playing different companies off each other. That is so very much not me.) But I lost my cell phone just before I went to San Diego, and I really wanted to find a way to replace it without paying for it. So I called a couple of different companies to find out what they could offer me, and then I called my current carrier.

I was on the phone with Sprint for much longer than I would have liked. I just kept calmly refusing to accept what they offered me, and pointing out that while signing up a new customer does in fact increase the customer base, losing an old customer decreases the customer base and should therefore be considered equally important. I kept stating my position that, as a seven-year customer, I ought to be eligible for their lowest discounts. (Memo to CSRs: don't send someone to your website to look at a cell phone if you plan to charge her more for the phone than the "special web offer" price.)

I finally signed on to a plan that has more minutes and an earlier start to the free evenings, no charge for Michael and I to share the plan, 100 texts each per month at no charge (yeah, I know, to a lot of you that would be insanely and punishingly low, but we don't really text), two free camera phones, free shipping for the phones, and no upgrade fee. For $10 less per month than we're paying now.

I'm pleased with the final deal, but pretty annoyed that it took so much work to get there. Why should I have to practically stand on my head to be offered prices that are clearly available to other customers?

(no subject)

How long into a course of antibiotics would you wait before you decided that they weren't working?

I've been on Augmentin for an ear- and sinus infection since last Tuesday. My ears still ache and still seem to be full of fluid. I still feel run down and not my normal self. And I still have what seems to be sinus-related coughing (no deep chest symptoms). I don't feel as bad as I did, and I'm not particularly congested anymore, but I don't feel well.

If I wait out the full ten-day course before deciding to go back to the doctor, it will be the weekend.

OMG big changes!!

We went to Ikea this weekend and bought Alex a "big-girl bed." For months we'd been telling her that when she was three she would sleep in a big-girl bed. With her birthday coming up on Friday, it was time.

She was delighted with her bed in the store, and was crushed that we took home flat-pack boxes instead of the floor model. Every day since Saturday, she's asked when we were going to put her bed together. We were waiting for the bedding. The comforter and waterproof mattress pad showed up yesterday, followed by the sheets today. So tonight, after dinner, we assembled the bed.



She was nothing but excited - in transports of glee, actually - until Michael started disassembling the crib. "Where am I going to sleep, though?"

"In your big-girl bed."

"Am I a big girl?" she asked nervously. When I told her that she was, she looked dubious.

Just before stories, she told me she wanted her crib, "because I think it's beauty-ful." I said something noncommittal, and we settled down to read a stack of books which just happened to show happy scenes of children going to sleep in beds.

We turned off the lights, turned on the lullabye CD and the vaporizer and the star lights on her ceiling. I asked her if she wanted "big-girl bed books" to replace her former "crib books." She did. But she rejected one of the former crib books: "That's not a big-girl book."

Digging Up Dinosaurs turned out to be a big-girl book. I sat in the rocking chair and watched her page through it in the dim light of her ceiling stars, until she finally fell asleep.

She looks so small in that enormous bed.