Not happy

OK.. So I did not set this thing up in order to complain, but really... This is just soooooo annoying..

After only a year or so my expensive Nokia suddenly died last night.. The screen and the top slider part just went out!! This means no calls, no alarm clock, no calender ... no nothing really. Now you need to understand that my mobile is my only real form of communication here in Singapore and txting is how we all keep in touch.. I had to get my son to call me from Australia this morning to wake me up cause it is my only alarm clock......

However, it is a Nokia, and Nokia are a big company.. and reliable... you would think....

My first clue that things were not going to be a seamless as I would have hoped, was when I called the customer care line and the woman appeared to be trying to set a land speed record for the number of words she could fit into any given call..!!!! Along with the mispronunciations this made it pretty much impossible to understand anything she said. Fortunately someone at work told me where I could go to have it looked at.

The second clue that things were not good came when I got off the lift at the plaza and discovered a very long line snaking out the doors of the Nokia Care centre... Oh dear....

When I finally got to the head of the queue I was given a number, told how much it would cost to fix it and told to wait.... This before anyone had even looked at it. :(

After sitting and waiting for an hour, where everyone's phone seemed to be working except mine, my number flashed up and I trotted of hopefully to see a young man at booth 14.. An auspicious number and I was still quite optimistic..

This did not last long.. It took him about 45 seconds to inform me that:

1. They had to keep the phone for 2-3 days, and no, he did not know what I was going to do..
2. Again tell me how much roughly it was going to cost..(still no answer on what was wrong though..)
3. Assure me that I would certainly lose All my data. Calendar, phone numbers, messages, photo's.... ALL would be gone.. He was helpfully adamant about this..
4. Ohhh..... and you can now give us a $25 deposit for the privilege of not knowing and losing all your data!!!!

It is a constant source of amazement to me that Singaporean's who are so manic about excellence in other areas, take this sort of thing with completely passive compliance.

I, holding on carefully to a boiling frustration, collected my bits and pieces and left... with the phone, which is now hooked up to a number of cords in the hope that I can retrieve some of the data onto my computer. But it really is working in the dark.

My first phone was a very cheap Sony Erickson which lasted for 4 years until I replaced it with the expensive Nokia just over a year ago !!! Go figure.....