me.

Maybe I’m generalizing, but from what I’ve seen, this is true.  Recently I broke my first generation iPhone.  We don’t need to talk about that, it’s a sensitive subject.  I like the old iPhone and I wasn’t planning on upgrading.  Well my timing couldn’t have been worse, but regardless of timing, I would have still run into the same kinks.  My first thought after I stopped beating myself up was “well I’ll just go get a new one, take the extra year on my contract and be done with it”.  Based on my first experience of getting the first iPhone, I expected something similar.  Boy was I wrong.

When I decided to get the first iPhone (wasn’t a hard decision, since I had a HTC Wizard and after two months of using it was completely fed up with pricing, usability and stability) it was a couple months before it came out.  I thought, well I’m not going to wait in line, I don’t like lines and my patience for them is very low.  So the day it came out I went to the Apple Store at 9pm and they were still open and had a ton of iPhones.  Ten minutes later I was walking out with my 8GB iPhone.  Once I got home, it was up and working in another 5 minutes.  I’ve never had a more simple process for phones, landlines or mobile.  I was amazed.

So I kill my 8GB by putting it through the wash.  Yeah, I’m a retard, but, I admit that and am willing to pay the price.  So it’s 4 days after the launch and I figured they’d have some in stock at the Apple Store (AT&T stores got like 40 I think, so there wasn’t any way they’d have some).  I go to the Apple Store and there is a line.  Out the door.  In the Texas Heat.  There is also a sign that says “We don’t have any iPhone 3G at this time”.  So why is everyone waiting in line?  I ask on of the CSRs inside if they have any to which he replies “I don’t know, I think we might”.  A lady in the line was more helpful, telling me they had received a shipment that morning.  Well cool, I’ll go wait in line.  A CSR came outside and brought people bottled water while we were waiting in line.  Very cool, very Apple.  I waited in line for an hour and a half.  What really was mind blowing was that no CSR could say “yes we have enough”.  Why couldn’t someone go count the little boxes and say “we have X iPhones total of so and so types.  If you are in line position X+1, you might not get one”.  That way the hard core gamblers of their time could just sit there and take the chance!  After an hour and a half in line, I get to the front.  I tell the guy I’d like a 16GB White (I like the white, doesn’t show fingerprints and stuff).  He gets it and scans it with their little handheld doohickey.  Types in my info and hits next.  His face melts.  He says “do you have a discount or business plan?”  ”Not that I know of.” “Well it says you’re not eligible for the upgrade.” “Well how much for just the phone, no discount?” “I can’t sell you the phone.  You’re going to have to go to an AT&T store.”

I had to leave.  I had just waited an hour and a half for the phone and just got told no.  My att.com account page said I was eligible.  I was on the regular iPhone plan for the last year.  W.T.F?  

That evening, after I’d cooled down, I tried to call the local store to see if I could come in and order one, then they would just let me know when it was in.  A coworker had lent me and old RAZR so I could at least have a phone (thanks Albert!).  Somehow I didn’t press the correct sequence of keys and I got an AT&T CSR.  She was very kind and helped inform me of what was going on (Nicole FTW).  Basically I’d applied a “discount” through my company some time ago, like over a year ago when I had my HTC Wizard.  When I switch to the iPhone plan, it didn’t get rid of the discount.  The discount simply didn’t work for that plan.  The new plans were eligible for discounts (so if you removed one, put it back on!), but not the old ones.  However, according to AT&T, Apple had lots of stipulations regarding who was eligible.  If you had discounts or a business account, you couldn’t get one in the Apple Store.  So I had her remove the discounts.  She said I should be able to go in later on that day and get one.  I had stuff to do, so I figured I’d check stock in the morning and get one.  

Next morning, I go in and wait for half an hour when I finally get one.  I’m still wondering why no one can count off how many they have, and tell the people in line “We only have X iPhones.”  They did tell us they only have 16GB white ones (score!).  So I’m checking out and this CSR tells me the same thing as yesterday.  This time I’m equipped with the knowledge that I’m eligible.  I showed him my account on att.com to confirm my eligibility.  He grabs their AT&T rep onsite and she fixed it.  Like in 5 minutes.  Why couldn’t they do that yesterday?  Anyway, I walked out with iPhone in hand (thanks Spencer!) and was able to restore a backup from my last one.  

My concerns with the process is Apple is saying its AT&T, AT&T is saying its Apple, but since they are blaming each other, aren’t they basically admitting the process sucks?  Why not make it better?  You had a year.  

This is really just an example of crap we all go through every day.  Some people come into a company, or companies try to collaborate, but when one doesn’t understand something, they try to slap a crap load of process on everything.  This doesn’t help understanding, because now we have to train and educate people on the process, and that takes a lot of time.  We also have to do the process, which is time consuming.  If your doing business stuff, why do you have to augment another process on something that is probably already time consuming?  Many of those processes are self imposed and could be avoided.  For some reason business likes to add process to everything, maybe they feel it “standardizes” things.  I’m just a lowly software engineer, what do I know about business?