Category Archives: Retailers

Well, I’m at it again.

Posted on by Standard Reply

I can’t help it. I need to draw mazes. I should try to get them out there. There are so many print-on-demand services that handle all the manufacturing and logistics… it would be crazy to not try & generate some passive income from my mazes.

How do I choose though?

I certainly have a style. So, I drew a maze, emailed a bunch of services at once, and submitted webforms to others asking why I should choose them. It should prove entertaining whether any of it lands or not.

Here’s the email:

Hello friends,

I write to you today somewhat overwhelmed.  The great and powerful all-knowing Google has given me a multitude of options.  I have so many options I’m nearly paralyzed with indecision.

Perhaps I am getting ahead of myself.  I’m an artist of sorts.  I’m a bit of a strange duck.  I need a creative outlet so I turned to blogging, so I guess I write a bit too.  I have been drawing mazes since I was about 12 or 13 years old, and now I’m 46.  I have been repeatedly told I should publish them or something, but I just never did.  I was more about squiggles than coherent themes or cartoons.  I have branched out.

I would like to get some of my mazes on merchandise like T-shirts or mugs, and maybe into self-published books.  I had a guy with a sublimation print business set up some maze mugs that came with a little dry-erase marker… but he closed up shop before any real orders were made.  He also made some really cool one-off socks!

This is where you guys come in.  Why would I use your service over the others out there?  Is there a one-stop-shop where I can set up merchandise and publish books?  Sell art prints?  I have browsed the websites.  I have read the low price and high quality sales pitches.  How would you, a creative person, implore a fellow creative person with an odd penchant for writing weird emails and letters to use your service over all the others?

I’m a huge fan of the no-money-up-front model, where you have a shop and a site and I have a small home there.  In that theme I would be using paint.NET or GIMP to tweak the hand-drawn mazes… although I just learned via Twitter that Scribus may be another invaluable free tool for putting together a book.  Do any of you offer printed mugs with dry erase markers?  Also…  I have a legacy pile of mazes some of which are stupidly sized larger than my scanner.  Do you think phone scans would be acceptable if they can provide good enough black & white image quality?

I certainly wouldn’t mind some somewhat passive income from a creative outlet, that can enable my stupid guitar habit or my rekindled LEGO habit.  I know my last creative “money making” ventures in local bands actually ended up costing money, so hopefully this pans out somewhat more successful.  Unless you also pay in “gas money” and free beer?

Would anyone want to wear a shirt with a maze on it?  Does anyone buy print media maze books and do them?  Good questions that I would like to answer.  I could print a book of mazes that I have drawn around letters to companies like Pizza Hut or Pepperidge Farm.  Should maze books include solution pages?  I like to draw mazes, not solve them.  Is that weird?

I’ll attach some samples of my work.  I really would like to hear your thoughts on why I should use your site over others.  Perhaps one of my mazes will inspire you!

Inquisitively,

-Eric

—

aixelsyd13.wordpress.com

And, here’s the latest maze:

I’m not happy at all with that paper, the pen, or the scan quality… but I did it really quick. I attached a few random past works to the emails & web submissions where applicable also.

I’m also looking into print-on-demand publishing. Would anybody out there reading actually but this stuff? Please, let me know in the comments.

What about a book of mazes sent to companies for various ridiculous reasons and their replies? Why read it here for free online when you could buy it? Yay! Send me money!

In all seriousness, any advice is appreciated… especially if you’re already successfully doing such things.

I need to read these about the publishing though…



Pepperidge Farm Adventure Maze

Posted on by Standard Reply

So, right before new years, I went on adventure looking for mini cocktail rye breads from Pepperidge Farm. They used to make one called Jewish Rye, and Pumpernickel.

The Jewish Rye was cool because it contained ground caraway seeds instead of the standard whole caraway seeds. I have had bouts with Diverticulitis, so I try to stay hydrated & avoid tiny sharp seeds. Caraway absolutely ruins sauerkraut, but it is good in rye bread.

Pumpernickel is cool because it essentially is named for the devil’s farts… and if that’s not cool, I don’t know what is. This is also code in my household for “I am always right.” I told my wife the name origin behind it, she said there was no way, Googled it… and, like I said… I am always right.

I know that the other manufacturer, S. Rosen, make cocktail-sized rye and pumpernickel bread… but the rye is not seedless. Apparently Hanky Panky means something entirely different in some parts of Ohio.

My wife likes to make this stuff for New Year’s that’s like swiss cheese, lemon-pepper, and mayo on the cocktail-sized Jewish Rye then toasted in the oven. It’s delicious. I like to make little mini open faced Reubens. The pumpernickel would be an acceptable alternative if I absolutely can’t find the seedless rye.

Because I’m weird and can’t leave anything alone, we have this…

I, of course, posted it on Twitter, Instagram, & Facebook. I tagged Pepperidge Farm & Pepperidge Farm Cares. To their credit, they did reply:

I did tag all the stores that I could in the photo on Instagram and Facebook, but none of them have taken the bait.

I had to turn it up a notch, to which they did not reply:

Hello, I was wondering if anyone had time to try and complete my maze while considering bringing back cocktail-sized Jewish Rye. The ground caraway was awesome, because it isn't a potential diverticulitis disaster like whole seeds are. My wife wpuld [sic] use it to make this delicious lemon pepper cheese appetizer, and I like to make tiny Reuben sandwiches and pretend I am a reformed King King that no longer has to eat people sacrificed to me on Skull Island. The mini pumpernickel is cool just because of the etymology. I mean? It has to be the most metal bread out there. How can you discontinue such wonderful things?

All of that just says:

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone had time to try and complete my maze while considering bringing back cocktail-sized Jewish Rye.

The ground caraway was awesome, because it isn’t a potential diverticulitis disaster like whole seeds are.

My wife wpuld [sic] use it to make this delicious lemon pepper cheese appetizer, and I like to make tiny Reuben sandwiches and pretend I am a reformed King King that no longer has to eat people sacrificed to me on Skull Island.

The mini pumpernickel is cool just because of the etymology. I mean? It has to be the most metal bread out there. 🤘

How can you discontinue such wonderful things?

Also, AI generated art seems to be the cool thing these days, so I tried to make this on a few different ones to go along with the blog post:

King Kong feasting upon a stack of tiny Reuben sandwiches on tiny bread. There is a stack of sandwiches in the background resembling the Empire State Building. it is evening with a full moon in the clear sky. King Kong has a highly detailed face where you can clearly see his expression of pure satisfaction.

I may have to buy a gorilla suit and make some tiny Reubens with the S. Rosen bread… and convince the wife or kids to take my photo.

Or, I may have to make a maze for S. Rosen, featuring a caraway seed that must make the journey through my guys without getting stuck, causing inflammation & a possible infection. Or maybe it has to make its way through a grinder before beign added to the dough & baked?

I doubt than anyone at Pepperidge Farm or Pepperidge Farm Cares is going to complete my maze. But, if they do, you can thank me later.

As far as discussion here, which I always ask for yet rarely get in the comments, let me know what you do with mini cocktail rye or pumpernickel bread.

Also… Ler’s discuss Reubens. Russian or Thousand Island? Regular rye or marbled? Do you add anything like bacon or swap out corned beef for Pastrami? Do you ever use Havarti instead of Swiss? Grilled in a pan, or on a panini press? I should blog about Reubens. Mmm. I’m hungry.

Also, please, please, complete the maze! Send me the results, post & tag me!

The most important takeaway is that if I tell you something, I am always right. Pumpernickel.

Green Potatoes 6: Night of the Living Spuds 🥔

Posted on by Standard Reply

Are you with me so far? I bet you thought I forgot about #GreenPotatoGate. Maybe you had, and wish I had. I think this may be it, as I’m never going to get a full response from Giant Eagle, and I did get some coupons! First, are you all caught up?

Had enough? Of course you haven’t. Read on, brave soldiers for spuds and titans for tubers!

As promised, I did receive some coupons from Tasteful Selections. Way to stand behind their products! There was a cool ingredient card too, so I may check that out. I do like purple potatoes.

Giant Eagle reached out with a DM on Twitter, then nothing. 🦗🦗🦗

And…

I submitted some shenanigans to Shop ‘n Save via webform, but haven’t heard anything back via email.

Although, I did get a Facebook message:

That was anti-climactic. They didn’t comment on the maze or the green potatoes.

I did, however, get one super awesome response to a positive message that I sent out about some potatoes from The Little Potato Compnay that I bought at Shop ‘n Save. I reached out like this:

From: Me <me@nunya.biz>
Date: Sun, Jan 1, 2023 at 10:44 PM
Subject: Thank you for a great product! 🥔
To: <feedback@littlepotatoes.com>

Salutations Spud Specialists!

I just wanted to reach out to thank you for your tremendous tiny tubers, or your perfect potatoes if you will.

Saturday I picked up a bag of the Terrific Trio style spuds from Shop ‘n Save in Heidelberg, PA, …and they were all fantastic.

You may think it’s odd to be so elated with a perfect product, but lately I have been on a crusade of sorts as I feel that nearly ¼ of all my purchased potatoes are green and arguably poisonous.  Albeit very slightly poisonous.

I eat a lot of potatoes.  So I buy a lot of potatoes.  It seems like no one is immune to the great greening that has taken place iver the last few years.  Yours were absolutely delicious though.

If you would like a window to my spiral into spud shenanigans, please feel free to catch the saga as it has unfolded so far at my blog:  

https://aixelsyd13.wordpress.com/tag/green-potatoes/

I’m sure that I’m up to at least 2 readers semi-regulartly that aren’t me or AI bots.  Well, I think.

I draw mazes.  I sent mazes to some of your competitors as a means to get their attention, and perhaps stand out among all rhe other missives.

I am sending them you you as a thank you.  Please, enjoy them and pass them along to your potato people!  I would love if you got a chuckle out of them and if you took the time to try them out.

I really appreciate your multiple avenues of contact, prominently displayed right on the packaging, and a super easy to navigate website.  I need to poke around the recipes!

I hope the new year brings you many new opportunities, great joy, & happiness.

Auld Lang Syne

-Eric

PS – Also attached is a photo collage of breakfast home fries with those fantastic tri-color delicious beauties.

And attached this photo (along with my potato mazes):

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is wp-1672606172129.jpg

And I got this response:


From: Feedback feedback@littlepotatoes.com
Date: Tue, Jan 3, 2023 at 12:21 PM
Subject: RE: Thank you for a great product! 🥔
To: Me me@nunya.biz

Hi Eric,

Thank you so much for the aMAZEing feedback! I’m glad you enjoyed your Terrific Trio home fries!

Don’t hesitate to check out our website at https://www.littlepotatoes.com/en/recipes/ for recipe ideas and upcoming contests. Also feel free to check out our Facebook page ( https://www.facebook.com/LittlePotatoCo ) to watch our video recipes and share with other The Little Potato Company lovers.

Have a terrific day!

Madison Marano | Consumer Service Coordinator

direct 587.460.2095 | main 780.414.6075

email madi.marano@littlepotatoes.com | web LittlePotatoes.com

11749 – 180 Street | Edmonton, Alberta | T5S 2H6

Neat!

I will be looking for more of their products too.

I think we can all agree, if you start seeing less green potatoes in the grocery store, that was clearly all my doing.

Please try to solve the potato mazes if you’re into that.

Need help from those of you that sell art and/or merch using fulfillment services. (𝘢.𝘬.𝘢. The return of A-Maze Mugs & more?)

Posted on by Standard 6

So, Ci3 closed up shop… and with it went A-Maze Mugs. Not sure that any were actually sold anyway? I know I have 2 prototypes and we did work up art for the box. I posted about them a few times. I also did a (very) poorly recorded jingle.

I feel like I just sit on all my maze art, while others are able to monetize their art projects. This is me reaching out for advice from my creative peeps.

I know there are no-money-up-front printing/fulfillment services. Does anyone have good (or really bad) experiences with any of those? I clicked a link on one, and 30 are showing up in my FB ad feeds. Are any more reputable/profitable/flexible than the others?

Even better, does anyone local do printing & fulfillment services, like Commonwealth Press?

Would it be worth it to save & invest some money into it?

I would like to put my mazes on all kinds of stuff. I get likes on my mazes on Instagram. Occasionally someone sends me a solution. Maybe T-shirts would be useless… unless you had one on the back and wanted someone to complete it as a sort of massage? Ha ha.

Tiles may be interesting. The socks that Mike worked up were super cool! Mugs seem to be out but those new stainless steel tumblers are in. Maybe a beer stein? Maybe just a book of mazes? My thing though, is most of my stuff has no theme. They’re just mazes. I have a TON drawn. They just need scanned & maybe cleaned up a bit.

I’m not looking to get rich, but creativity funding more creativity never hurts. Right?

These look like a fun product IMHO, anyway. Finding someone to ship a mug and a dry erase marker AND do the printing may be tough?

The 4 initial maze mugs maze ideas.

I’m open to any and all suggestions and solutions. I feel like I’m just sitting on these, have been for years, and should be doing something with them.

Those Other Stuffed Peppers

Posted on by Standard 1

So, tonight for dinner I made a new (to me) one.  The wife has made it several times and it’s always a hit with the kids.  I think her original recipe was entitled Santa Fe Stuffed Peppers.  This takes out a bit of the spice and she’s not a huge fan of black beans (which I would have included).  Everything here came from Aldi, except the slices of white American cheese.  We just had that on hand, and no shredded cheese.  It worked well.

Our 3 year old daughter wolfed down about a pepper and a half worth of filling, skipping the outer pepper for some reason.  (She would possibly eat it all, or just the reverse tomorrow.)  She said that we should have it every night for dinner.  I noted that she really likes these, and her mom’s homemade Manwich-like sloppy joes, and that we should start a food truck that specializes in ground meat and call it “Ground Around Town.”  She said we have to paint it pink.  I asked if she wanted to cook or wash dishes.  She chose cooking.

Out of all the stuff you think kids might be picky about, they gobble this up.  (3 yo & 18mo).  I like these better than the more traditional meatball w/ rice stuffed in a green pepper & covered in spaghetti sauce or tomato soup.  For some reason, I can dig the rice & ground meat mixed… but I do not like rice in meatballs.  The red, yellow, & orange peppers are very sweet too.  I like them more than the green ones.  Also, if you mention that you like your peppers stuffed with sausage, you can just close this tab and move on.

These were really easy to make…

All I did was…

Cook the rice & set it aside.  I used the liquid from the can of tomatoes & a beef bullion cube in the water.

Cut the tops off of the peppers, pull out seeds & weird white stuff off of the inside.  (Bethany parboils them first, I didn’t.  I liked them a bit crunchier.)

Brown the ground beef, season to taste.  I added onion powder, garlic powder, & seasoned-salt.  (We have also used ground turkey for this.  It’s delicious.)

Mix the fire-roasted diced tomatoes into the ground meat after draining the fat off.

Mix the rice & beef/tomatoes together.

Put the peppers in a glass baking dish.  Pack the peppers with the tasty rice & beef goodness.  Two didn’t stand up well on their own, so I made little foil stands.

I cooked them in a preheated oven at 375° for 20 minutes, then added the slices of cheese for 5 minutes.

Like I said, Bethany parboils the peppers so they’re a bit softer, so she cooks it at 325° for 20-25 minutes.

Next time, if I make this, I may cook the rice in tomato paste or other tomato flavoring, and add the black beans.  Not sure what the kids would think.  Maybe a little bit of heat would be nice too?  This reminds me of Spanish rice in a pepper.

 

 

Do you make anything similar?  Do you do stuffed peppers a different way?  Do you stuff acorn squash like this?  Do you do different seasonings?  Make ’em meatless?  (Toasted garbanzo beans & black beans might be really good in this!)  Let me know in the comments!

At my signal, unleash a $3 VHS cassette.

Posted on by Standard Reply

So, browsing one of the local flea-market/yard-sale type groups on Facebook, I discovered this post…

Gladiator on VHS for sale. Only $3.00 American!

Gladiator on VHS for sale. Only $3.00 American!

As you can imagine because I’m blogging about it, many questions came to mind.  It’s hard to even know where to begin.

We’ll start with the obvious.  Who would pay $3 for a VHS cassette of any movie, let alone this movie?  I mean Gladiator was a good film… but here is a shortlist of better values available online…

This is just for physical media.  I didn’t even look into streaming.  I get that not everyone is set up to stream and that some people (myself included) like to put their hands on physical tangible media.

Who has a working VCR?  OK.  I do, but I’m odd.  It’s a VCR/DVD-recorder, and someday I will transfer all of my VHS tapes to DVD (which is already a dead format).  Who is still watching video tapes?  I mean, watching the old 4:3 aspect ratio drives me nuts these days.

The other side of this… who goes through their stuff, decides they can part with this, and assigns a $3 value to it?  I mean, I could see if this was a collector’s item.  I have Star Wars on VHS and I’ll probably have it forever, but The Gladiator?   Sure, it was a good movie… but not that good. Why were they even still making video tapes in the year 2000?

What do you need that badly that costs $3?  This wouldn’t be worth the gas money or the bus fair to meet someone to make the sale.

I have been strapped for cash, but never would think to list what essentially amounts to garbage for a negligible value on a Facebook flea market group.  If this sells, I really have a lot of stuff that I need to be listing for under $5 amounts.

Wait. What? (The Bob Evans saga continues.)

Posted on by Standard 2

I never emailed these names.  Seriously.  Someone must have sent Jon the text of my blog, or a link to my blog.  My original email contained the names which I then changed to something I thought would be ridiculous and obvious, so I didn’t accidentally call out another real employee.

Am I being trolled?

On Thursday, November 19, 2015 8:54 PM, “0503, BER” <Unit_503@bobevans.com> wrote:

Hello,

                I am following up on a bad review that we had charge to our store.  I was hoping to get some more information, as we believed our location received this review in error.  We don’t have servers by either name mentioned in the review (Maleficient and Lincoln), and would like to find out which store you were actually at.  Then we can send this along to them, so that they can address these issues.  Thank you for your time.

Jon Herrmann
General Manager
Bob Evans #503
Bridgeville, PA
(412) 257-1369

Shenanigans. ☘

I wrote back.  Nothing interesting besides pointing out that I never sent those names in an email.

I also got an email from LeAnn confirming our Dormont address, so I passed along the new one.  I wonder if I’ll get a T-shirt?

If it’s gift certificates, does anyone know of a charity that accepts them or of a family in need?

Maybe they’re sending someone to dispatch of me.  Maybe I should ask King’s to weigh in?

This still makes me laugh uncontrollably:

YOU GET A CRAYON!

Smiling & coloring rule.

I did get a really insightful comment on the last post though. Doesn’t seem like it’s gone down that way so far.

 

Five Guys Burgers and Fries: Doing It Right

Posted on by Standard 9

So, the other day I posted a Facebook status about Five Guys Burgers and Fries, and I thought I’d share it here and maybe even add some more thoughts.  It seemed to get a lot of comments pretty quickly.

Here it is:

I’ll tell you what, for all the customer service and food service that I do complain about… one place stands out as incredible. Every time I’m at a Five Guys Burgers and Fries no matter the location, they are fully staffed… everyone is doing a job & doing it quickly & efficiently with a rather pleasant look on their face. They communicate with each other quite well. The employees seem to be having fun while getting their job done, and they seem to take pride in what they do. I can only assume they pay much better than the average fast food joint, or just know how to delegate responsibilities evenly & know how to treat employees. I was in the one in Robinson when they got SLAMMED at lunch time today, and they put more people on registers, and worked down an ridiculously large amount of people in a short time. It helps that they only have burgers & the occasional hot dog as a menu item I’m sure, but it still is pretty impressive.

I'll tell you what, for all the customer service and food service that I do complain about... one place stands out as incredible. Every time I'm at a Five Guys Burgers and Fries no matter the location, they are fully staffed... everyone is doing a job & doing it quickly & efficiently with a rather pleasant look on their face. They communicate with each other quite well. The employees seem to be having fun while getting their job done, and they seem to take pride in what they do. I can only assume they pay much better than the average fast food joint, or just know how to delegate responsibilities evenly & know how to treat employees. I was in the one in Robinson when they got SLAMMED at lunch time today, and they put more people on registers, and worked down an ridiculously large amount of people in a short time. It helps that they only have burgers & the occasional hot dog as a menu item I'm sure, but it still is pretty impressive.

I’ll tell you what…

I should take a video of 10 minutes in a Five Guys and 10 minutes in this damn McDonald’s on West Liberty Ave. and compare how they’re run.  McDonald’s employees are slow, confused, careless, and sometimes even slovenly.  Five Guys employees seem to be the exact opposite on every front.

I’ve been to several locations, the Waterworks, Murrysville, Robinson, and Greensburg… and they’ve all been run with the same efficiency, pleasantness, and extreme cleanliness.  I just think it ought to be said that it’s noticed by the customers, and they need to keep doing what they’re doing.

Of course, I’m very aware of food allergies, and peanuts are a big thing at Five Guys.  This seems to get a bunch of flack, but they do take allergies seriously.  The peanut-allergic have to accept it just like I accept that being allergic to shellfish, I’m not going to get a safe meal at Red Lobster.  It’s OK.  There are many many places to dine & choices to make.  I’m glad that I have Five Guys as a choice.  I’ve heard that they are excellent in handling a dairy allergy.  Just check out the comments in the image above to the right.  I see the allergy warnings on the door as a very responsible thing to do.

Even after all that… the burgers are just absolutely delicious.  I tend to get a bacon cheeseburger with A1 and green peppers… sometimes even mushrooms.  The french fries are almost as awesome as Kennywood’s Potato Patch fries, and that’s hard to do.  The ingredients are always fresh, the burgers always cooked perfectly.  One of these days I want to try a hot dog… but I can never get past the burgers.  Maybe a little burger & a hot dog will have to do some day?  I don’t even know if I can handle that.  I’m glad I don’t live too close to one of these places, I’d be there way too often.

I hope to send a link to this to Five Guys, just to tell them that I appreciate what they’re doing, and to keep on doing it.  Customers can see and appreciate that the employees are enjoying what they do, and doing it well.  It does make a difference.

Five Guys Burgers and Fries on Urbanspoon Five Guys Burgers and Fries on Urbanspoon
Five Guys Burgers and Fries on Urbanspoon Five Guys Burgers and Fries on Urbanspoon

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A letter to Sprint, HTC, and Android…

Posted on by Standard 1

This is my letter to anyone within the Sprint, HTC, and Android organizations who will listen to my plea for an actual quick and final solution to my phone problem…

✉

Hello,

I’m writing to inform you of a problem that I’ve had with Sprint customer service, HTC‘s hardware, and Android‘s operating system.  I’m not sure what kind of answer or resolution I’m looking for.  I just feel the need to tell someone or everyone how unacceptable Sprint’s service (or lack thereof) has been lately as related to multiple HTC or Android errors.

It started about two weeks ago, shortly after I applied the latest update as prompted by the phone.  My original HTC EVO 4G LTE purchased only in September started going crazy.  The screen would freeze, become slow or completely unresponsive.  It would eventually load a screen that looked like TV static… only not moving.  Naturally, I took it to the Sprint store.  They also tried to blame the problem on various apps and settings. They did a soft rest, a hard reset, and even apparently looked up the problem on the internet.  I had to leave my phone overnight and pick it up the next day.  Well, the next day I was given a new or refurbished phone.  The store employee said he couldn’t tell if it was new or refurbished.  He said it might be new because the phone itself was rather new and they might not have refurbs yet.  I find it hard to believe he couldn’t tell a new phone from a refurbished one.

So, after updating the new phone, reinstalling some apps, and setting everything up the way I had it on the old one…  I started to notice a minor annoyance.  If I opened a browser link through Facebook, email, or Twitter it would immediately close after it fully loaded.  I took it to the Sprint store that Saturday morning.  Again, they did the soft & hard resets, and tried to blame it on an App.  They changed some settings in the phone that were telling the phone to look for a 4G network.  When I went back in after leaving the store & running into the browser-closing problem again…  The next guy changed that setting back and told me that I shouldn’t have changed it… and wouldn’t listen when I told him the last guy had just changed it.  Oddly enough, I was told that the 4G network would be in the area by January when I purchased the 4G phone.  When I told the person helping me at the Sprint store that I was told that… he says they were never given a timeline.  Is lying part of your training as a Sprint customer service representative or sales person?  What about intimidation and making someone feel like they’re not using their phone properly?

I was persuaded out of getting a 2nd replacement phone.  I was told to delete all of my apps, add them back one by one to see which was causing the problem.  The browser-closing problem was happening even without any added apps.  Now it was shutting the phone off each time the browser crashed.  I can assure you that I’m not an idiot when it comes to technology.  I was told I was part of a percentage of HTC users that were having a similar problem, and that a replacement phone could potentially have the same issues… and to wait for HTC to make the next update.  So, the solution was to wait?

My phone has taken to shutting itself off all week at random intervals.  I can be talking on the phone, using Facebook, or not even be near the phone.  It just shuts itself off.  It comes back on, and I send HTC an error report.  Where do these error reports go?  Do they do any good?  Is anyone working on the problem?  Is this an HTC problem, or an Android problem?

Well, I waited a week.  This Saturday I went back to the Sprint store, looking for a replacement phone.  I work on the road & I have a pregnant wife.  I need my phone to be functioning properly all the time.  Again, we went through the hard reset option, and my apps were blamed. “Unfortunately Android is an open system” they said.  “It must be a bug.”  What about this mysterious problem that a certain percentage of HTC users had encountered?  (I wish I could remember the percentage, I was told 10% or 20%, I believe.) A week has gone by with an apparently large bug issue, and nothing has been done about it?

Lookout

All clean!

I was advised to install the Lookout app.  I guess that app’s OK.  I was told it would hunt out any apps that were messing up my phone.  So, another thing to add to my monthly bill…  Of course it’s not free or a one-time fee.  As I tried to download & install Lookout, my phone shut itself off.  I handed it to the woman assisting me, and it shut off for her again.  She took it back to the technician.  Again.  Their advice was to run this app, and hope for the best.

Upon walking out of the store, I ran the app & it found no problems with any of my installed apps.  I went back into the store, and this time they decided to put in a “ticket” for a replacement phone.  I really have to wait again?  A phone may be in by Tuesday.  Again, I will have to re-download my apps, re-import my contacts, put all of my settings back.  This will be the 5th time within the span of three weeks.

I left the store hoping to go on about my day, & my phone went into some “HD media link” video after hanging up on my wife in the middle of a conversation where I was expressing to her my exasperation with the entire situation.  I went back to the store asking for the next level of solution.  An entirely new phone?  I’m not eligible for anything other than the ridiculously outrageous full prices because I’m not eligible for a new phone, or wouldn’t be singing up for a new line.  I have been a Sprint customer for over 10 years.  You would think that would carry some sort of weight.  You would think I could “split the difference” in purchasing a new phone with some kind of discount.  You would think a quick affordable solution would be offered instead of feigned apologies & being told to wait.  I feel like I might as well have been talking to the brick wall in front of the store.  It would have offered the same resolutions & peace of mind.

The early termination fees are the moral equivalent of extortion.  I am tempted to move all five lines in our plan to another carrier.  For what we pay for 5 lines total per month, you’d think Sprint would like to keep us happy.  Once all the 2 year limits are up (and they’ll all be happening around the same time), we will be moving to another carrier.  I know that Verizon has better signal/coverage in our area anyway.

I think that HTC and Android may find it interesting that Sprint employees routinely verbally (pardon the expression) shit all over the hardware, firmware, software & apps before any diagnosis is even made.  Perhaps you ought to review your arrangements with how Sprint “supports” your products.

HTC ought to be a little more transparent as to where the error reports go…  and maybe perhaps respond to them?  Let someone know that you’re working on the issue.  Maybe let Sprint or other carriers know if you’re having a major issue or if you get 10+ error reports from the same phone in one day.

If anyone can offer a solution or explanation that doesn’t throw another entity under the proverbial bus, I’d love to hear it.  I just wanted to let everyone involved see how poorly their products & services are being represented.  Writing this & eventually blogging it will hopefully be therapeutic.  It’s an added bonus if it helps bring to light a seemingly never-ending careless customer service loop, and even better if it gets something resolved.

Thank you for your time in reading of my misadventures, I hope to hear your thoughts.

Disgruntled & disgusted,
-Eric

✉

Some more phone info if you need it:

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