The first 15 days: Is the Palm Pre better than Sprint is bad?

Act Three: In which our true enemy is revealed

The Sprint store in downtown Seattle is an ordinary Sprint storefront, with salespeople up front and a tech-support area in the back. And, unlike the kiosk, this store participates in the ReadyNow no-customer-left-behind program. I headed toward the counter at the back and explained my situation... or started to, anyway.

"Stop," the salesgirl said. Let's call her Heidi, since that's what her nametag said. "I don't need to know any of this. What's your phone number?" I gave her the number and she walked back to have the tech folk reset the phone. They hand the phone back after a few minutes, and Heidi's holding it in her hands. I ask a couple of questions about how things have been going with the Pre in general, but Heidi's not a conversationalist. Instead, she's holding my phone and staring off into space.

She's bored. I'm bored. She pokes at a few buttons, mumbles something about not knowing what's supposed to happen, and starts pecking at my Pre with her long acrylic nails -- first tapping the keypad, then pulling at the protective plastic film.

I clear my throat. "I'm leaving that on there for now. Do you know if they'll be selling any protective sheets? I don't want to scratch --"

An explosive sigh indicates that this too is not necessary information, but she quits picking at the plastic.

"Hey, I have my old BlackBerry with me. What are you guys offering for sellback rates?"

"$10."

"Oh. When will you have more Touchstones?"

"I don't know." Another explosive sigh.

The phone activates; I'm sent on my way with both Pre and BlackBerry. Heidi recites the mandatory request for a "5" customer-service rating. I mumble back and head for Starbucks.

I reloaded the applications I'd already spotted in the Apps Store -- Pandora check, FlightView check, Tweed very check -- and go into the messaging screen to alert my friends as to my good fortune.

I have no friends. At least, I have no friends in my Pre. The address book is missing; the reset deleted it, and the only remaining copy is in -- I check -- the much-maligned BlackBerry.

And now I'm back to the store, and it's almost exactly 24 hours since I started attempting to give Sprint my money for a working Pre, and my good humor is at an end.

Heidi sees me coming. The girl may be rude and possessed of questionable fashion sense, but I get the idea she's pretty familiar with the look of someone wanting to put a foot up her ass. She gets extremely busy with looking at the carpet and speaking in run-on sentences to the couple standing near the empty former Touchstone display, who are visibly startled by the sudden loquaciousness.

The tech-support counter behind the Plexiglass empties out like Main Street in a bad Western. I cool my heels there for about 10 minutes, at one point playing with the computers on the desk -- what, was someone going to come over and stop me? they'd have to talk to me then, and I have a store full of people who clearly don't want to do that -- until one of the boy salesclerks walks over.

I notice he's removed his nametag.

I explain, with that snippy-teacher-lady tone I do exceedingly well, that this phone (holding up Pre) needs to have this phone's (holding up BlackBerry) address book transferred. Now. Nameless takes the phone back and finds a tech. I go to the front of the store and sprawl across a few chairs, making notes for this article, because I love you and I wouldn't want you to feel you missed a step on this long and winding road.

It takes about ten minutes, and I'm now more curious than annoyed. Nameless returns, holding the phone at arm's length. I would have too.

"Look," I said. "Frankly, this has been a horrible customer service experience. Isn't Sprint supposed to have a store advocate trained on the Pre specifically? Who should I have talked to when I walked in here?"

Nameless shifts his weight. "We're all equally trained. The problem is that you bought at a non-Sprint store."

"I bought at a Sprint kiosk."

"That's not a store. We're a store."

"But when I walked in here and asked for tech support, like I was told to do when I called tech support, I got the impression that Heidi" -- at this point Nameless makes the tiniest of involuntary movements to shield the spot where his nametag should have been -- "has no idea how the phone works. And I certainly shouldn't have had to come back to get the phone book transferred. What should I have done to have made this experience go more smoothly? And aren't you guys a ReadyNow store?"

"If you have questions about the phone I have a phone number at Palm. You can call them."

For every reporter, there comes a point on certain stories where the situation's descending trend line intersects with the rising trend line of sheer ridiculousness. I looked at Nameless, working at a job I know from my brother's stories is simply wretched. I looked at my phone and -- having finally learned something useful from all this drama -- checked to see that it is indeed on the correct number and has the correct address book. I looked back at Nameless and knew I wouldn't be getting that callback about my "Sprint experience" today, or yesterday, or at all.

And I smiled, because my Pre rocks, and because there's nothing more unnerving than an angry, smiling customer.

And because thanks to the Web, I know I can get my Pre's protective skin from BodyGuardz, a nice quick-tips guide from PreCentral, and a decent conversation about my phone from any number of sources.

And because by the time I buy my next Pre, I'll be buying it from Verizon. (Haven't decided yet whether to brave a kiosk.)

I'll be buying it from Verizon, and Nameless, surly Heidi, sweet-but-overworked Dessetta, and CEO Dan Hesse will all be looking for new jobs, because if this is Sprint's saving throw, it's pretty clear it has failed. With Verizon available in Alltel's territories when that merger's completed in a few months, many of Sprint's traditional no-one-else-wants-them customers suddenly have choices. And with the first few weeks of numbers in, Palm sees now that sometimes comeback stories can only support one plot line.

I hope Michael lands okay. He deserves to prosper. Sprint, not so much.