Third time's a charm! (Well, kinda)

This morning we got out of bed far earlier than a sane human ever would on a Sunday, and prepared to battle Telstra for the third time in as many days in an attempt to upgrade our iPhones.

Off we trotted to Fountain Gate Westfield to face The Clipboard Mafia. On our way to the T-life store we decided to see if the little old neglected Telstra kiosk in the same centre was in operation. To our delight it was! I recognised the salesperson there from previous interactions and knew that he actually had a clue about the products he was peddling.

Much to our amazement, he had 2 x 32gb iPhones in stock and could attend to us without a clipboard in sight. Praise the -whatever deity you normally praise in times of joy- here.

Within 30 minutes he had arranged the transfer, arranged to have the early termination fees for our current plans (we had one month left) waived and it was all going wonderfully.

Until.

The Nice Man told us that he could not activate our phones at the kiosk. He advised that because people (read: staff) keep fiddling with the settings on their activation system, it doesn't work any more.

We would have to go back to the T-life store with our new toys, WAIT IN THE CLIPBOARD QUEUE (*cry*) and they would have to activate our phones there.

LE SIGH.

So we thanked him and headed off to Clipboard Hell.

Sure enough, no sooner had we walked in, Mr Clippy (sorry Microsoft) had accosted us. His officiousness was palpable.

Resigned to the fact we would have to join the queue, we reluctantly provided our details and he took our precious new babies out the back to be activated (it was all very secretive - as he disappeared through the heavily coded door, I'm sure I saw a couple of witches and an eye of newt just behind a boiling cauldron).

We had some time to pass while the magic happened, so I did what any person with a longstanding history of negative customer interactions with Telstra would do: I worked my way around the store, carefully opened the Bigpond branded browser (Ugh IE - I felt so dirty) and loaded this blog on every one. Childish? Absolutely! Strangely satisfying? Hell yes.

I had just long enough to "enhance" the customer experience for anyone checking out their laptops, and our phones were done and we were on our way.

Anyone like to place a bet on whether or not they get the first bill right?