It's 2003.
The Motorola V60 rules the wireless waves with its sleek metal exterior and gratifying "SLAM!"of a clam shell design(not since a proper landline cradle phone has 'hanging up' felt so rewarding). Oh sure, the hinges will wear out and the antenna will eventually break off, but in 2003 this phone dominates, by itself, a third of the growing US cell phone market. The people love it. And...it sucks.
Not the least of this phone's problems is the fact that it takes no fewer than 18 steps to find the clock and change the time. So our store sees a wave of people in the weeks following Daylight Savings changes who finally realize they've recently been either 30 minutes early or an hour and a half late to every appointment. A week into this rush of new faces and we've begun simply holding out our hands while the customer is still 20 feet away, flicking our fingers toward us and saying, "Clock?" Quickly align yourself with the frustration of the customer by being equally outraged by any design or programming flaw. This helps the hours pass smoothly.
This lesson is the start of my entrenchment against the phones and The Phone Company. This is when I realize that the best side to pick in this battle is the side standing directly in front of me.
The door opens. A man carrying a dog walks hastily toward the counter and I instinctively offer my hand and say, "Clock?"
"Hell no. PHONE."
Hell yes, it's Mickey Rourke.
"Oh...uh...okay. How can I help you?" I'm helping my first celebrity. My first of hundreds, it would turn out, but the first that I remembered so fondly that I would end up helping so often. Yeah, Samuel L. Jackson came in around the same time, stoned, shaking his head at everything we tried to explain. So that was cool for a second. But this guy...this 'Mickey Rourke'. Man.
"My phone is busted."
If understatements competed in beauty pageants, this one would win Miss Congeniality, Photogenic, Costume, Swimsuit and Smile.
He hands over the pieces, the oh-so-many pieces, of a Motorola V60 phone and I think to myself "all the king's horses...all the king's men..." before asking,
"What happened to it?"
"A wall happened to it."
"Are you sure it didn't happen to a wall?"
He smiles, laughs winsomely and sets his dog down in the free-range store.
"You might say that."
"Okay," I breathe, "let me see what we can do."
I go to the back room where, at this time, we have hundreds of replacement phones, pieces and parts. It's 2003 and the customer's needs are still, mostly, taken into consideration. So we do warranty replacements in store, insurance claims on the spot and we hoard parts and pieces to help fix the problem that is right in front of us without having to send the customer anywhere else. Can you imagine? I show the phone to my mentor/manager and he gasps "Whah?" before standing to help just as the chihuahua/terrier finds us around the corner.
"Check to see if he has Lockline on his account."
Long story, shortened: M Rourke has Lockline (insurance). M Rourke needs Lockline (a lot). He pays a deductible and we pull the replacement phone from a plastic pouch and send him on his way. My manager removes and re-adds the insurance feature so as to keep M Rourke enrolled in the insurance program and give the store another couple of dollars in feature sales(ahhh...the lost art of cell phone insurance fraud). This repeats 5 times in about as many months.
I become increasingly comfortable with this exchange and begin adjusting my approach as he walks in the door.
"Phone?" I smile with my hand offered.
"Shit yes, phone." he smiles back.
"Hello, Sausage Girl" I greet his sweet dog, Loki. I have renamed her because she looks like two dogs have been stuffed into the skin of one. I know I have 'made it' when M Rourke chuckles "he he, Sausage Girl...I kinda like that. Come here Sausage Girl!"
And so Mickey Rourke breaks phones. We replace the phones. Mickey Rourke pays his deductible and never complains about the contacts he loses. Mickey Rourke remembers the phone numbers he needs, minus a few late night entries. Mostly, people call Mickey Rourke, so he can't be too bothered. Mickey Rourke teaches me another lesson in cell phone customer service:
The amount of anger you exhibit from your loss of phone calls or contacts is directly proportional to your fear of being forgotten.
It may have been Mickey Rourke's loss of cool that brought him into the store to replace his phone so frequently, but it was his maintenance of cool, his propagation of cool, his evangelism of cool that made us want to help him and for which he will always be remembered. That and that fat, sweet little dog.
