No Apple iPhone for 2008

After the holidays I still had a little bit of spare cash to burn. Since I was still using a piece of crap phone that I bought on ebay for $20, I figured it was time to make the upgrade. YEP! The Apple iPhone baby. So, I made a trip on over to the Apple store to make the final dive and was greeted by a casual Apple clone as usual. Very nice and smiley. I spend some time with the phone and I have to admit that every time I pick it up I am really sucked into the Apple magic of it all. However, after three or four trips to the Apple store I still have not convenced myself that I want to drop $400 on this gadget. And, there was really no one else working there that was head strong on convencing me to make the jump either. So I quitely left to think about it and maybe return later for a purchase.

Enter the VERIZON store! --- I have been a loyal Verizon customer for years now quite simply because the phone service just always works. (They also sponsored the Adobe MAX conference in Vegas - and that was a great conference!) As I made my way into the store to check out the phones I was also greeted by a nice sales person that gave me direct attention and insisted that he help me pick out a new phone. I very quickly told him that I hate software, computers, and cell phones, and I was not going to pay more than $20 for a phone. He kindly continued to assist me showing me the lower end phones - all of which I did not care for. Finally after showing me just about every phone in the store including the iPhone look alike; he showed me a Motorola Razr Maxx Ve and began to demo the features of this phone. There were many nice features including MP3, 2.0 megapixel auto-focus camera, GPS, Bluetooth, etc. However, I guess I was really sold when he said "what is really nice is that not many people have this phone". Since I typically don't like to follow the crowd that is all he needed to say. That plus the little blue side lights that light up when the phone rings - simple but very nice! So, the sales person at Verizon sold a $250 phone to a customer (me) that was only willing to pay $20 for a phone. This phone is hot looking, it feels great, and I remain a satisfied Verizon customer.

Moral of the story: A salesperson is a "go-getter"! A sales clerk is an "order-taker"!