My EVO 4G has been a pretty good phone, but last night it had what can only be described as a spaz attack. It was stuck in a reboot loop, turning itself off and on over and over. I figured that a brief visit to a Sprint store would yield me a new phone.

I brought it to the Sprint store in Santa Fe Springs, and showed the problem to the portly fellow sitting behind the desk. After smudging the screen with his sausage fingers for a while, he confirmed that the phone should be replaced…but because the store doesn’t have a technician working there, I had to file an insurance claim and pay a $50 deductible, or take the phone to another store where they do have one on staff. At this point I asked to speak with the manager, so he waddled to the back and asked her to grace me with her presence.

She came out and repeated the company line, saying that it was their policy, to which I replied, “Can you call the corporate office and tell them their policy is retarded?”

She didn’t seem to take too well to that comment, and replied, “Certainly not!”

She then offered to make an appointment for me at another store, and I informed her that the only time that worked for me was as soon as I got there, because I need a damn phone. As she dialed the number, I asked the simple question, “Is there someone I can call at the corporate office to let them know that their policy is retarded?”

Again, she didn’t seem to appreciate my rejoinder, and said she would not make an appointment for me if I “continued to be rude,” and said I could call customer service. So I muttered something to the effect of, “Great, I can call India and talk to someone that doesn’t know what they’re doing on another continent.” This met with a similar response, and I heard her on the phone say, “forget it!”

I grabbed her card and left, and headed to the store in Downey. After fighting traffic for a half hour I finally arrived at my destination 3 miles away, and found a technician to take a look at the phone.

She popped out the battery, pressed a button on the side, turned it on, and in a flash was in a secret menu and reset the phone. I was thankful to have a working phone once again, but had to politely inquire, “Why didn’t they do this at the first store so I wouldn’t have to drive over here? Are they too dumb to know the secret?”

Much like the manager at the Santa Fe Springs location, she didn’t seem to appreciate my witticism. It seems that Sprint employees are humor impaired, and keep useful information hidden like it’s a national secret and they’re in the CIA. I would be all too happy to waterboard them to make them give up this data to those who could use it.

She told me that I could have called Sprint and their customer service staff would have told me how to reset the phone, neglecting the fact that were I able to call Sprint, that would mean my phone was working, and thus wouldn’t need to reset it. I asked her if she would call the manager at the first store (who I believe I referred to by whipping out her card and saying “this bitch”) and instruct the employees there how to reset the phone, but I think that suggestion fell upon deaf ears. I eventually left in a huff, but the moral of this saga that should never be forgotten is that employees at phone stores are nearly all completely incompetent, and the ones that aren’t hoard all their knowledge, because god knows that letting other employees know how to do useful things is a terrible idea for their business. The second most important lesson is that we should never, ever forget that cell phone companies couldn’t care less about their customers. I can’t wait for some other technology to supplant all these bastards so we at least get another set of huge corporations that suck, instead of the same ones we’ve had for years.