I’m a proud owner of a T-Mobile G1. I’m ahead of the curve. I’m showing brand name loyalty to Google, the smart and cool technology brand. I’m… well, I’m a little miffed at my experience with getting this damned thing fixed.

It began when one of my other early adopter friends came over and said, “Have you seen Bubble?” Bubble is a beautiful level tool. Set your G1 on any surface and a level bubble comes up and tells you all sorts of good details. Great for carpenters and home decorators who want a level surface. And when it doesn’t work, it means your G1 isn’t as cool as the next guy’s G1. That’s it. You, my trendsetting G1 friend, can’t level your desk with your phone.

So… I went to the T-Mobile store. To the T-mobile teen-aged drones working there, I had to explain the mercury switch sensor. “Why would you want that?” They, a trio consisting of a young man, and two young women, had never seen a G1 and of all of the explanation, finally understood one word: “games.” But they did what any mcjob drone did, they called tech support for me. Heareforafter, I shall dub them the Drones.

Now, I’m not angry at the Drones, but the goddamned music in the store was so loud, they could barely hear each other. I don’t think any one of them had the braincells to turn the volume down so they could talk amongst themselves let alone on the phone. And while they have all the common courtesy I’ve come to expect from the-young-and-the-brainless, they just. didn’t. get. it. that I had a phone and wanted service.

Until I got angry. First, I was on tech support, straining to hear the poor woman with a thick Jamaican accent. Just as I had to explain the mercury switch feature to the Drones, I had to do it all over again. She didn’t believe me that a phone had a tilt-sensor. She didn’t think I was calling about the right phone. In fact, she put me on hold after saying “Just one moment.”

“Thank you for calling, HTC Support, this is Brian.”

“What happened to the other woman I was talking to?”

“Who? Who is this?”

*sigh* Thus, for the third time I launch into the spiel of mercury switch explanations. O, happy day. This eventually ends up with “Sir, we can open a ticket for you but the phone will have to be sent in.” “Ok,” I reply. The Drone manager - not quite a queen bee by any intellectual measure - but has picked up that something has begun to go wrong, not because I’m coming in with a broken phone, and not because my ears are bleeding now, but because of my demeanor.

Princess Drone takes the phone, talks it over with HTC, and eventually comes to a conclusion that T-Mobile Tech Support forwarded me to someone else entirely, but they work out that I’d have to turn in my phone and start the entire experience all over again, by… wait for it… calling T-Mobile Tech Support. I, before I raised my voice, said “Thank you, I’m going to be late as it is,” and left, wish the Drones a good evening. I enjoyed their chorus of “We’re sorry,” and filtered my last comment, wishing it was the wails of the damned in Hell, rather than incompetent T-Mobile Drones.

So, today, I’m going to a DIFFERENT T-mobile store, and hoping for a DIFFERENT client experience. I get it that G1 wants to compete with Apple, but by now, I’d have a working Apple phone, whereas, my mercury switch still doesn’t work. I realize my phone works fine except the sensor, and my complaints are few and far between. It’s just that it shouldn’t be so hard to get decent service.