Tag Archives: verizon

August 24, 2011 · 10:00 pm

The earthquake wasn’t the weirdest part of my day

Things have been a bit off-kilter lately. Not sure if it is because I have had this miserable cold, sinus, cough thing or maybe the stars are just aligning in a weird way. Yesterday was so damn crazy even I, the ever famous MFTA, was surprised.

In my post Madison, flying with bad sinuses, I can hardly hear anymore stupor, I sat at my desk yesterday and started banging away at my list as if it were any other day. Of course my phones have not been working correctly since Verizon went on strike. A coincidence? I think not. For a couple of weeks I would get static and crossed lines, only from 1-5 PM. Yesterday they were pretty much unusable. There was constant static, calls dropping, lines crossing… pretty much a train wreck. So I used my cell and called it a day after Verizon finally gave me a repair date this week as opposed to the September 16th date they gave me last week.

Around 11:30 my doorbell rang. I opened the door to a police man:

Him: (sort of looking behind me) Mrs. Levinson, are you ok?

Me: Well, I have a bit of a cold and cough, but otherwise, I’m good. Why?

Him: You dialed 911 and when we called back all we got was static.

Me: Nope, not me. My phones are not working, all I have is static. Wait, did you guys think I dialed 911 and then my lines were cut? Yikes. Sorry, it appears my phones are randomly dialing out themselves!

Just as I said that ANOTHER cop car pulled up. I am guessing these guys were not all that thrilled with what could have been going on here. (CSI-PW?)

I sent them on their merry way, thanking them for their attentiveness and went back to work. Around 2:00 I was sitting at my desk when my chair started to vibrate. Hmmmm… nice feature but I don’t remember installing it. Then all the stuff on the bulletin board started to swing. I ran upstairs and the keychain lanyard was swinging on the hook. When I called Gary and told him I felt an earthquake he told me I was crazy and it was probably a big truck.

Indeed. We’ll see who’s crazy!

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April 7, 2010 · 8:42 pm

Paul Giamatti and the broken trackball

Today was a lemons to lemonade day. I woke all cranky about the broken trackball on my blackberry that would go sideways and up but would not go down (please, hold the jewish girl references here). If you are a blackberry user you know that down is key. Without down you can’t read your emails, you can’t turn on your bluetooth and you can’t change your settings to vibrate so your phone bings all night long with emails. Ok, so I could have shut it off for the night but let’s not forget I have a daughter overseas and without the blackberry we have severed-comm (yes, I have been watching too much 24 – copy that).

So, on this unseasonably beautiful April day I was not all that sorry to take the convertible out to the Verizon store to get it fixed. Happily it was only a $20 replacement part. And while I was there I had a nice lively debate on the worth of the iPad with my favorite guy there.

But, the biggest treat of all was that today a film was shooting at our town’s train station. And who was there, but Paul Giamatti (who I called Giamotta on Facebook today and am still a little embarrassed that I have a photo album there with that name in the title).

Poor Paul. There he was in a wool cap and this heavy jacket and it was near 90 degrees at high noon. I am guessing this was not exactly lemonade for him.

Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog. For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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January 5, 2010 · 9:10 pm

Verizon Rocks

Seriously, you don’t hear that often, right? Always complaining about not getting what you need from giant Telecom? Well I would like to personally thank Veronica at Verizon customer service (no joke, I wonder if all the CS peops are alliterations), who felt my mom pain and allowed us an early upgrade on my daughter’s blackberry to an international Tour so she can BBM us from her semester abroad.

When does this happen? Um, hardly ever. For me anyway. It’s usually all sorts of fighting and carrying on to not get what you need. Thankfully Verizon recognized my family’s superior status as a quality customer and showed us some mercy. Either that or poor Veronica simply felt bad for me. Big Telecom with a personal touch, how lovely.

For those unfamiliar, BBM is Blackberry Messenger. This is like texting but it is internet-based and you do not pay per message. To translate that into dollars and cents, international texts, are 99 cents each, national are 54 cents. Let’s be conservative and assume she would only text the boyfriend three times a day (unlikely), her other assorted friends that she is traveling with 5 times a day, and us, well probably once a week or when there was a problem. That would be around $818 for the five months she is away. Yeh, crazy right? And those were conservative estimates.

These few little comments could have helped me get what we needed:

  1. Veronica, are you a mom? Ok, well imagine your daughter being in a foriegn country and not being able to stay in touch.
  2. You know Veronica, I am a rabid Apple user. I want an iphone more than anything but I won’t ever leave Verizon.
  3. What? You need to ask your supervisor? Oh, is she a mom? Tell her as a mom I would really appreciate her consideration on an early upgrade to help my family out.
  4. And my favorite of all times which really made her happy: Veronica, YOU ROCK MY WORLD!

The moral of this story? If you are persistent, personable and play on the mommy heartstrings you can usually move mountains. But you all new that already!

    Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog. For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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