(If you want to skip the background story, hit ctrl-F and search for “the punchline” - it’ll take you past the setup)

So, earlier this week, I broke my cell phone. It was Monday night, and I accidentally dropped it off a counter in my kitchen. This shouldn’t be a big deal - I was paying for the full replacement insurance, and I was still under warranty. Between the two, I should be able to get a replacement.

I go to the Verizon Store on Tuesday, and ask about getting my phone replaced. No problem - my coverage handles it. The only problem is that my particular phone (HTC Touch Pro) is not being stocked by any stores or local warehouses (it wasn’t exactly Verizon’s most popular or loved phone).

Still not a problem. I pay $16 to get priority overnight shipping, so I’ll have my replacement by 10 a.m. Wednesday morning. I knew I wouldn’t be able to coordinate my day to intercept the package at 10 a.m., but I could get the delivery slip and pick it up after 4 p.m. It’s tough not having a phone or my contacts available, but I can muddle through a couple days if need be.

I pick up my phone from the local FedEx Express center, bring it home, open it up…it’s the wrong phone. They sent me the HTC Diamond instead of the Touch Pro - a similar phone, but made differently (it’s smaller, doesn’t have the slide-out keyboard, etc.).

Now, here’s a little insight into the replacement plan. When you invoke the manufacturer’s replacement, you receive a stripped down phone that contains no components - no external card, no battery, and no battery cover/backplate (and it’s a certified reused phone). Normally this makes sense - if you’re replacing a bad unit, you shouldn’t need to replace all those components too.

I call Verizon, tell the customer service representative my story, and he goes through his script, asking me what’s wrong with the replacement. He actually asked me “do you not like the phone you got at all?” No, I don’t like the replacement phone, but that’s beside the point. It wasn’t the right phone! So he escalates this up to a service tech who can give me more option insight and options.

Here’s the punchline. According to the technician who handled my escalated complaint, it is standard procedure to replace the Touch Pro with a Diamond in the event the warehouse does not contain any Touch Pro units. It is standard procedure to replace a customer’s phone, on warranty, with a completely different phone.

Does anyone else see the problem with this?

I now have a broken phone with all its componentry and a replacement phone that doesn’t even have a back cover! If I’m supposed to replace my Touch Pro with the step-down Diamond unit, what the hell am I supposed to do with the back cover, slap a piece of duct tape on it? Wrap it in Saran Wrap? Rubber bands?

When I was two years old, my parents gave me a big wooden box (looking back, it wasn’t really that big, but I was small, so I was impressed). This box had a bunch of holes in it - a round hole, a square hole, a triangle hole and a few others. Then they gave me a bunch of wooden shapes to insert into those holes. Here’s the test - if you can successfully insert those shapes into the right holes at the age of two, you might not grow up to be a complete moron!

Well, it looks like someone in Verizon management didn’t do too well on the box/shapes test, because here I am with a Touch Pro back cover, which is a few millimeters longer than the Diamond and in no way fits or locks into the back panel, and a Diamond phone that is completely useless to me.

I think it would do Verizon wonders if they added the following cognitive test to management candidates in order to assess their problem-solving and decision-making abilities:

All of my ranting aside, the Verizon technician was very helpful and accommodating. I was three weeks away from being eligible for a phone upgrade (which I was planning to do anyway), and we worked out a compromise where I get my upgrade early and they ship it out next day (which means tomorrow/Friday, because the warehouse was closed for the day when I called), and I get to keep the half-assed replacement phone, which I can probably throw on eBay for $20 as a replacement unit for someone else who actually has a Diamond.

This does mean that my total phone downtime will be nearly four days by the time all is said and done - Monday evening through Friday afternoon. I can receive calls on my broken phone, but with my screen busted, I have no idea who’s calling, I can’t return missed calls unless they leave a message, and I can’t receive or send text messages. So I’m pretty handicapped in the cellular department.

Bottom line: I still like Verizon. I like the service, the coverage and their phones. Their support staff are very nice (in store and on the phone), and they did try to make everything right in spite of their mistakes. They just need to replace Bobo the warranty monkey with someone who can make better decisions regarding how their warranties get honored.

Thus endeth my rant.

A few days ago, I nearly made a $1,200 mistake. I made an assumption and an overinvestment in my own pride which almost ruined a solid client relationship and an ongoing maintenance contract. I narrowly avoided slitting my own throat, and I publicly offer this example to others as a lesson in how assumptions can color your judgment and pride can influence your actions.

A few days ago, a client sent me a forwarded email containing a handful of photos he wanted added to his site. This would be an unremarkable request, except that the email forward contained an exchange he was having with another Web designer, asking for quotes to have his Web site redesigned and maintained in the future. I was shocked - either my client accidentally showed me an email I wasn’t supposed to see, or this was his way of telling me we were no longer going to do business together. Either way, my pride as a professional was deeply wounded.

When I read his email, my first reaction was to do something very stupid. I nearly wrote the client back with a number of untruths, to tell him we’d outgrown him, that his patronage wasn’t desirable and it was best for him to look elsewhere for a designer to take over his Web operations. My ego was damaged, and I almost allowed it to dictate my actions. Instead, I reined myself in, and sent back a message stating I’d read the contents of his forwarded email, and that if he was indeed planning to move forward with another designer, he would want some statistical and strategic information regarding site visitor growth so the new designer could continue our upward trends. It was as much a way of reminding the client we were experiencing success as it was me acknowledging I’d read his message and was willing to be cooperative to the end.

Assumptions are very powerful things - not inherently good or bad, just powerful. They allow us to fill in the unknowns in our realities with what we perceive to be facts. We act on assumptions as if they are real; we must do this! If we waited until we had every single fact about every single situation, we’d never make a decision and never get anything done. I felt I had all the information I needed to understand the situation I was presented, and I responded to the client based on my assumptions.

I’m very fortunate I chose to bury my pride before reacting to my assumptions. The client responded the next morning to let me know our relationship was not in jeopardy, the exchange I witnessed was related to a completely different project, and the other designer was brought in by committee, outside of his control. He also mentioned the scale and budget of this other project would likely have been undesirable too.

My assumptions were very wrong - that much is human error and quite forgivable. My reaction was almost disasterous. Had I reacted based on my pride, I would surely have lost a client and friend. I’m fortunate I get to share with you an exercise in humility, not a story of loss.

This isn’t as much a lesson in having the wherewithall to handle ego-based situations professionally as it is a lesson in proper mindsets and perspective. I ended up making the right decisions in my response, but I spent a day feeling just awful about myself (didn’t sleep too well that night either) and it turns out there was no reason to do so. Ignoring my pride prevented a disaster. Had I sought more information before forming my assumptions, I could have also prevented a lot of anxiety and inner-turmoil. I only fell asleep because I eventually convinced myself I didn’t care.

Of course I care. If I didn’t care, what would be the point?