A Lefty Writes

As I may have mentioned before, I get crappy cell reception in my apartment because it's underground. However, cingular offers a charger/base that will automatically forward calls to your land line when your cell is plugged into it.

I went and bought this charger yesterday, but after setting it up and plugging it in I learned that it will only forward calls to local numbers (eg not to a 617 number from my 323 number). I'd been putting off changing my cell number, in part because I wanted to make sure people could still reach me and also because it was my last vestige of LA life. But in order to make this forwarding thing work I figured it was time to go ahead and change my number.

I called cingular from home to have them do it, but was then told that they'd have to change my SIM card which was easier to to at a local store. Fortunately, there's one just a few blocks from my apartment. So I went yesterday to have them change my number. That's when things got crappy. In order to change my number, I had to re-sign up with Cingular. That meant re-choosing my plan. Unfortunately, my plan is no longer offered in this market. So I had to choose between a less expensive plan with fewer minutes and a more expensive plan with more minutes. At this point I was frustrated by having to choose a new plan so I went with the less expensive one. It's not a huge loss in minutes and I certainly didn't feel like giving them any more of my money at that point. And to top it off, the guy helping me (and I use the term lightly) was kind of a dick.

Long story short (too late) the forwarding base that I got doesn't even work correctly. It's having issues connecting with my phone. So I'm going to return that and get another one, and if that doesn't work I'm going to try and get a new phone out of them. But I'm certainly not too hopeful that they'll be any more helpful than they were yesterday.