Well, Blackberry do da, do da da daaaaaaa…..

What a fiasco! All I wanted to do was set up a blackberry for our new Atlanta guy. Really, that was it. Nothing special or anything like that.

Who knew it would take two weeks for me to get it done, and it only got done because I walked down to the Cingular-AT&T store in Georgetown to get a new SIM.

Here’s the story. We hire a new guy in Atlanta and he wants a blackberry. We get him a blackberry with an Atlanta phone number. The next day he emails me to say he wants his old phone number with the new blackberry.

It’s too late to change the number at this point so I figure we’ll fix it when I get the device. I always make sure I get the new blackberries so I can set them up correctly and then send them on their way.

I get the blackberry and then proceed to get very busy for the next couple of days and a weekend comes along. So I get back from fire island after the weekend and decide it’s time to get this thing going for our new guy. I call Cingular- AT&T and ask about moving the number over to the new phone.

No they can’t do it.

Why?

Well because he’s already a customer of Cingular&T but at a regional level and because of this he would have to call and “release” his account so that the National Business unit (the one we use) could take over the account.

Fine, GA boy, get in touch with your Cingular&T peps and I’ll get in touch with mine. Another two Days go by and I get an email from my GA guy saying that it’s all ready to be switched.

Now at this point you have to remember that I called before but didn’t think I had activated the old 770 number that came with the phone. But I had. Who knew.

I call and ask to have the phone account switched over to the corporate account. The nice rep says that will be fine can I wait while she fills out some forms. She comes back on and tells me that because it was a regional account that it would take 24 to 48 hours to have it added to our National account. At this point the poor guy has been without the device for almost two weeks. I tell the nice rep that I’ve had an easier time moving another carrier’s phone numbers over to our master account. She laughs and says that yes that’s true.

So we wait two more days.

I call today to finally get it set up and ready, four times I called! The first person can’t help me because the phone had been activated and the 770 number was attached to the new SIM card. I said that I hadn’t activated it, she says I had and that the only way to make it work is to send the device to GA guy and have him switch out the SIM card with his old unit’s SIM. I told her I can’t do that because I have to configure it before he gets it. I thank her and then hang up thinking that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

I wait about 20 minutes and try again.

I’m on the phone for about 7 minutes talking to another rep when all of the sudden I get this feeling that I’m talking to myself. And I was. The phone had been disconnected. I call back and the exact same thing happens.

At this point I’m thinking that the first rep had put a nasty gram in the file saying that I had been rude to her. I don’t think I was but I did hang up kind of fast.

So I call back and it happens again BUT this time the rep called me back. Turns out it was our phone system. It’s been on the sprits for about a month now. Anyway the nice rep tells me I can’t use the SIM because it’s associated with the 770 number. At this point I believe him. So I hang up, get on line and find the closest Cingular&T store. It’s just up the way. It happens to be a nice day so I take a walk up and get a brand new spanking SIM with no number attached. I get to the office, call back and get it all working!

It was only 10:15 at this point of the morning. It’s Fedexed and on its way to Atlanta Ga as I write this. What a relief.

Oh and I’m still sick.

Boy am I ready to go home. Cio