2013_0127 Sunday
Some call it poor retail impulse control. I call it razor-sharp, perfectly-honed, lightning-fast decision making skills. This afternoon I made the comment to a friend, “my phone’s not that smart…”. Three hours later I was impulse-buying a Samsung Galaxy S3.
Well, it wasn’t exactly an impulse. I had been mulling over the idea for awhile, but I will admit when I woke up this morning I had no intention of buying a new phone. That’s the way I roll. I think in the back of my mind about someday doing something and then one day out of the blue I decide to do it and it’s done. I rarely regret one of these decisions. And this is no exception. I love my new phone.
I never had a need for a smartphone in the past, but now that I’m doing a lot of things differently, I’ve frequently found myself thinking things like, “I wish I could look that up on my phone…”, “I wish I could get directions on my phone”, “I wish my phone had a better camera”. So, today when I said, “my phone’s not that smart.” My next thoughts were, “Why isn’t my phone that smart? What’s stopping me from getting a new one? I know I would use it. I know I can afford it. I’m going to go get one now.” And off I went.
To be honest, as my grieving process continues, my other phone was starting to have bad memories attached to it too. Lately, when I looked at it my brain saw nurses calls, late night hospital visits, and texts involving my twenty-four-hour-a-day care of mom. It was another thing that was getting hard to look at. So. New me. New phone.
Luckily all my back-of-my-mind pondering in the last few weeks included paying attention to what’s out there. I listen to a few tech podcasts and I read things online, so I already had it narrowed down in my mind to the iPhone 5 or the Samsung Galaxy S3. Now that the decision was nigh I went into full research mode. Before I went down to the store I read reviews and compared the two online. The Galaxy seemed to fit me better.
It was really foggy outside. I mean, film noir, guy in a trench coat leaning on a lamppost foggy outside. But, that wasn’t going to stop me. I hopped in my car and drove to my nearby retail home away from home, Target, to pick each of the phones up and hold them in person. Yep, the decision had been made. I was going Android. My decision was mostly based on functionality for how I wanted to use it, but I will get a little girly here and admit…it is really pretty. I like it.
The kid in the mobile department was great. He answered all my questions, shared his own experiences with his personal phone, and didn’t pressure me one way or the other while I was trying to decide. Between several trips to the back room for different SIM cards and the myriad of screens he had to fill out on the store computer, it took almost an hour from the time I decided to buy the Galaxy to the time I walked out the door.
Halfway through the process of completing the transaction I found out this was his first ever phone sale. I suddenly felt all maternal towards him and wanted him to do well. (I probably, technically, could have been his mom, I swear he was really young.) I am always patient in these situations anyway, but I tried to be extra nice when he had to call his boss several (by several, I mean seven or eight) times to ask questions. (Interesting aside, I got to see his boss at his kitchen table via FaceTime on the kid’s iPhone.) I write applications for a living, so I even politely answered his questions for him myself a couple of times when I could tell just by looking at the screen what the answer was. I tried to do it without making him feel stupid. He apologized over and over, every time the computer was slow or he had to call his boss to ask a question. He was a very polite young man. Phone boy’s mom, wherever you are, you should be proud.
Due to some technical issues with the carrier, we couldn’t get my phone number transferred. That wasn’t a big deal to me. Although, phone boy and I were both less than overjoyed to find that to cancel out of the phone number transferring screen we had to start over entering about three screenfuls of my information. So, I do have a new phone number. New me. New phone number. I like this number better anyway. Much easier for me to remember.
Finally receipts were printed, papers signed, the phone was tested and working and I was about to be on my way. Phone boy did amazingly well for his first sale…I would have guessed maybe it was his second sale. But, he was super nice and I told him he did a great job for his first phone transaction. He laughed, shook his head, and said thanks. And I headed back into the fog a happy little girl with a brand new toy…er, a confident well-informed person with a very necessary, useful device.
Shannon Leaders 