One of Those Days
I’ve often said that my best anecdotes are provided by the INS. I alsmot feel I should have a category for those anecdotes to collect them all together. Then publish a mini-compendium.
This time, I was travelling to San Francisco to attend a friend’s wedding (which, I might add, was a very beautiful wedding - a great time would be understating it). At the Vancouver airport, I encountered my first obstacle of the day:
US Immigration
US INS: “What are you comign to the States for? (flipping through my passport”
Kevin: “A friend’s wedding.”
U: “Are you sure you’re not coming for a job interview? You’ve got a lot of work visa stamps here.”
K: “No. I did the last few times I was in town but this time it’s for a wedding.”
U: “Why d’you want to work here? Haven’t you had enough? (pointing at many US Stamps)”
K: (chuckle)
U: “I’m not trying to be funny. I’m serious. Why? You’ve worked in the States a lot.”
K: “Uh ok … because you … pay more?”
U: “‘you’ as in my country? USA?”
K: “Uhm. Yes.”
U: “Why? Why don’t you stay and work in Canada?”
K: (why did your Mexican parents move up to the States, you dick?) “…”
U: “You were working here in November.”
K: “Whoa there. No, I wasn’t. I definitely wasn’t working there in November. I haven’t worked there in awhile.”
U: “No you were here in November (points at a stamp).”
K: “I was studying in London in November so I couldn’t have been. There’s a visa to show that there.”
U: “What are you doing now?”
K: “I’m not working. That’s why I’m interviewing.”
U: “How are you supporting yourself?”
K: (have none of these people heard of savings?) “I was contracting for awhile.”
U: “Where are you living?”
K: “At my brother’s.”
U: “How do I know you’re not coming for a job interview?”
K: “Look, I don’t really have any reason to lie to you. I’ve told you guys every time I did go for an interview.”
U: “Do you have the wedding invitation?”
K: “I have the save the date card …”
U: “Let’s see it.”
K: “Here.”
U: “What’s this? This isn’t an invitation (throws it back at me)”
K: “You didn’t even read it. It’s a save the date card (hands it back to him)”
U: (glances at it, throws it back) “I’m going to have to ask you to go to the back room.”
K: (sigh)
U: “Don’t do that. Don’t give me attitude.”
K: “…”
In the end, the lady in the back was much more straight forward and reasonable, and within 5 mins, let me continue on with my thus far eventful day.
The flight itself was uneventful, as was the commute to the hotel. On the way to the hotel, I stopped by a phone store to figure out why my Cingular Go phone was no longer working even though it shouldn’t have expired.
The Cingular Experience
Cingular: “How can I help you?”
Kevin: “I have a Cingular pay as you go phone and it seems to have stopped working.”
(after several minutes of figuring out my number, etc)
C: “Sir, were you in … Honduras?”
K: “Uh. No?”
C: “Oh wait, there’s a correction here. Did you try to use your phone in Hong Kong?”
K: “Nooo but there’s a chance I turned it on whilst there.”
C: “It looks like they cancelled the phone because you tried to turn it on there. I’ll just turn it back on for you.”
(tap tap tap)
C: “Looks like I can’t do it from here.”
(calls customer service)
(gets forwarded to fraud dept)
(gets forwarded to customer service)
K: “Well at least now I know it’s not only the customers that get the run around.”
C: (talking to phone) “I really don’t think getting forwarded to the fraud department will help. I wasj ust talking to someone from there.”
Finally, it looks like they simply can’t turn the phone back on so I agree to let them give me a new number and credit the account.
It then turns out they don’t see any credit on the account, which strikes me as pretty much impossible because I had a fair bit and could not really have used it in 4 days of SF from my previous trip but I don’t remember how much is there exactly. The rep offers to put me on a zero term contract and waive the activation. He’s been at this thing for over an hour and I just want a working phone at this point so I accept.
After getting my information, he lets me choose from three numbers. None are appealing, I choose the least offensive and convoluted. It ends in “26″. But then it turns out there were some issues with the computer system so I couldn’t be automatically billed. We try a different card, still no dice.
Finally, I accept manual billing for the moment and have him process that. He hands me all the paperwork, sim card, etc and I notice the number is different. “The number you chose wasn’t available by the time I tried again so I picked the next closes one,” he said. It ends in “46″.
“I don’t really card,” I said, “but I know some who are pretty superstitious and well, that phonetically sounds like ‘path of death’.”
“Oh,” he says.
I’m sure he was dreading doing more paperwork after spending two hours, very patiently, working through all the issues with me so I let it slide. I’ll probably change it later. But now the time has passed for potential lunch with all the people I know in the area so I check into the hotel and order room service.
Hotel Room Service
The cheapest real meal on the menu: $11 Portobello and Chicken sandwich. Sounds yummy.
I ordered that and a coke. Half an hour later, the food and the bill arrive.
$23.00.
Checking the bill to see just how bad California state/sales tax is, I see two glaring items:
Delivery fee: $3.00 Coke: $4.00
A FOUR DOLLAR coke?! It wasn’t even a large coke. It was in a tiny 295ml glass bottle. Needless to say, I was not happy.
The realy kicker to this was when I noticed later that the 355ml coke cans in the minibar were $3.75.
Sigh.
Epilogue
As if all this wasn’t enough for a day, Kathryn equally didn’t have too fun of a day. She got delayed I think three times on her flight, such that she was leaving four hours later than the original departure time (and as I write this, she had a one hour delay on her return flight, too - I hate United). She arrive in SFO at around 1:00am.
My only advice for days like this: a Sony PSP can get you through a lot of this crap. I used it in the INS waiting room, at the Cingular store, and at the hotel.
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