The Family Techie

…or why I know the Philippines doesn’t like “Valentine’s Day” the movie.

My in-laws made an unexpected stop at our house on Valentine’s Day to deliver the children’s gifts and to make use of their family techie — me.

I was spending a wonderful Valentine’s day napping on the couch while Hubby sat next to me watching the Daytona 500. We know how to be romantic.

Anywho, the in-laws had bought a new Tracfone and wanted my assistance. The father-in-law wanted a phone with a camera in order to snap photos of his fish while ice fishing. Swapping fish photos by phone is a big event in my extended family.

My boy was very upset to learn he would have to give up my computer so I could use it to log onto tracfone.com.

I went through the various information, filling in things and recording serial numbers from the old phone and the new phone, and I had it all set to transfer the phone number and minutes to the new phone. In fact, the internet said it had worked. (My father-in-law would point out the internet didn’t SAY anything. I had to read it.)

I was instructed to turn the phone off and on rapidly and then wait 15 minutes. I did. The phone number showed up on the new phone, but the minutes were missing. I waited some more, shutting off both phones, but nothing happened.

And then I called customer service. The lady I spoke to was very nice. She spoke very clearly, which is a good thing when it comes to customer service, but I could tell she wasn’t a native English speaker.

I talked to this woman for a long time. Most of the time our conversation went like this:

HER: Can I put you on hold for 3 minutes?

ME: Yes.

HER: OK. I put you on hold for 3 minutes. OK?

ME: Yes.

HER: OK, I have to contact another department, and I put you on hold.

ME: OK.

(Finally, I am put on hold. Three minutes pass.)

HER: I still talking to other department. Can I put you on hold?

ME: Yes.

HER: OK, I put you on hold for three minutes.

ME: OK.

You can just TELL this was fascinating conversation. As I remained on hold, life passed around me. My hubby and the kids and his parents all talked and watched the race and the pavement deteriorated, and I was on hold.

Once in a while, I would have to go to various menus on the phone and tell the operator about various results, but mostly it was me waiting and every three minutes agreeing to remain on hold.

At one point, the customer service rep was waiting for her supervisor to come to where she was working. The supervisor must have been a LONG way away because the customer rep started asking me off-topic questions.

HER: Happy Valentine’s Day!

ME: Happy Valentine’s Day to you too.

HER: Are you doing anything special?

ME: No.

HER: Me either (obviously since she was working).

ME: Hmmm.

HER: What movies there?

ME: What?

HER: (and she asked very strangely, and I didn’t understand.)

HER: (clarifying) Movie “Valentine’s Day.” Is it playing there?

ME: Yes.

HER: Did you see it?

ME: No.

HER: I did, but I didn’t like it. (and at this point she launched into a movie review.)

(And the people in the living room with me starting looking at me like I was on crack because I was discussing Valentine’s Day and movies when I was supposed to be updating the TRACFONE for my in-laws.)

HER: Lots of little stories… big actor names… Julia Roberts…too good of actors to be in this bad movie….

ME: (responded appropriately, I actually enjoyed her review.)

HER: My supervisor isn’t here yet. What’s there? (I was confused but I figured out she was asking me what other movies were playing in the theater here.)

ME: The Lightning Thief. (I had to repeat this a couple of times. Apparently I am not as easy to understand to her as she was to me.)

HER: Here too. (and she seemed surprised). I’m in Philippines. (We also discussed what it costs to see a movie.)

ME: (conversation continued and the supervisor finally showed up and I was put on hold a couple of times and then before I knew it she was saying goodbye).

HER: Everything will be there in 15 minutes. Thank you for being a Tracfone customer and thank you for being such a good customer to me today.

ME: Wait. What? It’s done? I don’t have to do anything?

HER: Yes. (We ended the call.)

I waited 15 minutes. 30 minutes, and there were NO minutes.

I called customer service back. This time the person answering wasn’t as easy to understand. He put me on hold several times (every 3 minutes) and didn’t offer any movie reviews. We made it through, and I figured out his 8 sounds like a, but by the end of it, my father-in-law’s minutes had transferred to his new phone.

And it only took me almost three hours to do it. The good news is that I didn’t realize it was almost 3 hours because I was kept entertained.

It was refreshing to have a nice person willing to go off the normal script. Plus it was SO worth it to get the reaction of my family when they heard me talking about Valentine’s Day and movies.

And the very next day, I had to make a house call for my in-laws. My mother-in-law had purchased new cordless phones. When she was trying to figure out the directory feature, she switched the language to Spanish and couldn’t figure out how to get it back to English. That went much smoother.