I bought a new wireless phone this week.  It's probably more correct to say that I bought a gadget that's part phone, part professional organizer, part computer, part-insanity inducer.

The Blackberry Curve.  Twenty years ago, nobody but James Bond would have owned this thing and those of us in the movie theater seats would have been Wowed -- and questioned whether us regular folk would ever see anything close.

It makes calls, allows me to text message, send and receive email, browse the web, take pictures, get directions, keep my calendar, calculate the GNP of a third world country, and, in short, organize my life and communications to the nth degree.

If it was shaped more like a cylinder I could throw out my vibrator.

All of you who have had PDAs and Blackberrys for years, go ahead and scoff, but this is a whole new world for me.  If I can get past the basics.  It's a simple rule of technology -- the more features, bells and whistles it features, the more a gadget boasts that It Will Make Your Life Easier -- the harder it is to learn how to use.

Before I can utilize all those terrific features, I have to master the teeny trackball.  It's like a mouse -- for real mice to use.  My thumb's getting a work out.

My life as a Blackberry owner/user/lover almost came to a screaming halt at the point of activation today.  For once, I read the instructions which were very strict and firm.  The Quick Start guide even warned me that deviating from the instructions could result in disaster!

Step one -- Install the battery.

Step two -- with the phone turned off, fully charge the battery.

Step three -- Once the battery is fully charged, make a test call.  If the call works, Hurrah, your new phone is activated.  If not, call the activation number.

I made it through steps one and two, but the test call failed, so I dialed the provided number.  A very nice woman talked me through the process.  She instructed me to turn off the phone for five minutes.  When I turned it back on, all would be active!

Uhhh . . . not quite.  And, on top of that, there was a little message that said the SIM card was rejected.  SIM cards are chips that allow your phone to work.  If your phone is lost or stolen, the company can deactivate the SIM card so the thieves can't use it.  You can also store telephone numbers on the card and then transfer them easily to a new phone.  All of the telephone numbers I regularly call, and all the work-related people I might need to call, are stored on the SIM card from my old phone.  I knew I needed to put that card in the new phone.  So, I did, but the phone said this card was rejected, too.

I called customer service.  The woman told me that the phone was not activated after all because she needed to activate the SIM card.  To do that, I had to remove the card and read her the teeeny little numbers. 

This woman was very nice, but she wasn't the brightest star in the tech-world galaxy.  I had to explain to her several times that I had to get the data off my old SIM card.  She kept confusing which card she wanted me to put in which phone.

We got through the reading of numbers, etc.  Got the new SIM card activated finally and moved onto the issue of data transfer.  She told me to put the old card back in the new phone.

Nada.

She looked things up in her computer.  "Oh.  That SIM card was disabled."

Right.  It got disabled when she activated the new phone.  "Now what?" I asked.

She asked my permission to put me on hold and went off to consult her data transfer experts.

She came back on the line after about 10 minutes.  "I'm terribly sorry, but once that card was deactivated, we don't have the tools to retrieve the information.  You should have transferred the data before we disabled the card."

At that point, my voice shot up an octave, and my b.p. rose like a tidal wave.  "How was I supposed to do that when the phone wasn't activated and wouldn't recognize the card????"

I told her she needed to go back to the tech people and find a solution.  She asked permission to put me on hold again.

Three minutes . . . six minutes . . . nine minutes . . . (I knew the time because I started playing Scrabblecubes games to calm down and pass the time.)  At twelve minutes, I heard ringing in the phone and then, unbelievably, the chipper recording thanking me for calling the customer support line and telling me that a tech support specialist would be with me in less than . . . two minutes.

My b.p. turned volcanic.

In 1.5 minutes, another pleasant woman came on the line and I tersely explained that someone had been in the middle of trying to help me but I'd gotten booted back to the system.  I asked to speak to a manager.   To my own ears it sounded like I was chewing glass and about to spit out the pieces.

Bless this woman for remaining calm.  If she wants to give up tech support, she has a real future in negotiating potential jumpers down from ledges.  She asked me to explain the problem so she could get me the help I needed.  (Never once indicating that she thought that help should include valium or vodka.)

I bit out the words.  She paused and then said, "Just because we deactivated the card doesn't mean that the phone can't read the data."

From there, she talked me through a very simple process to find the info on the SIM card and save allllll the names and numbers with a couple of pushed buttons.  She then apologized because I'd have to save each number individually to the new SIM card.  At that point, if she'd told me that I needed to stand on my head to accomplish the task, I wouldn't have cared.  I was too happy to know that my important contact numbers weren't lost to me.  The woman also explained how I could back up all the date to my computer.

If I were a guy, I'd have proposed to her on the spot.  As it was, I asked her for her name again, thanked her profusely and disconnected.  Then promptly wrote an email to the company applauding her for her helpful service and professional demeanor.

In the hours since, I've saved my contacts, downloaded some ring tones, sent a text message to friends, browsed a couple of websites and, just because I could, checked email -- all through my phone.

I'm eager to check out the GPS Navigation service, but I'm not planning a trip to anywhere that I've never been before, so I'm going to wait on that feature.  Might as well start the 30 day free trial when I really need to, right?

At the moment, I'm feeling very high-tech -- part big city professional, part Bond-girl.    I had a rocky start, for sure, but instead of sliding down the slippery slope into technoidiocy, I'm climbing up to the top of that learning Curve.

 

Congrats! on the new acquisition. Well, you're ahead of me. I still have a PDA and a phone. My company will give me a Blackberry for all those nifty features you mention -- GPS, internet, etc. -- but I consider it a ball and chain I'm not ready for. My two year contract is up and I can change my phone. I just cannot decide what I need in a phone. I'm kicking and screaming that a phone is suppose to be a phone. However, to decrease the number of gadgets to be carried around, it's a great idea. I love having a camera at hand when I need to take a picture.

Congrats on joining us nerds with our nerd phones! As a tech support person myself, I could smack the people like the woman who made you think that your SIM card was useless. Some people forget that the second word in tech support is SUPPORT. Sheesh.