My cell phone experience

For the record, I’m not really a cell phone, need-to-be-in-constant-communication kind of person. But, I do have a cell phone which comes in handy on occasion.
Many of the cell phones here are on what is called the Amigo Plan, which is a pay as you go service. You need to put more time on the phone at least once every 60 days to keep the service active. Cards are sold in many stores and you punch in the numbers on the card to add the time. My phone only speaks Spanish so I am always afraid I will somehow mess up adding the time. I found out that at Wal-Mart if you buy air time there, you tell the cashier your phone number and pay for the time and it magically appears on your phone. So I usually do that.
Last Friday, I really wanted to use my phone and discovered my 60 days were up and a new card was needed. So I stopped at Wal-Mart to buy 200 pesos of air time. The cashier didn’t really seem too familiar with adding the time and he actually had to punch the numbers in twice. He gave me my receipt. I told him that I had not received a text message on my phone that there was time added. He said it sometimes took a few minutes to show up. I had never had that happen before. I went out to the car and waited a few minutes. Still no time added and I couldn’t use the phone as the 60 days were up. I went back into Wal-Mart to the service desk. The woman there looked at my phone and at my receipt. She, too, told me that it might take some time to show up. I asked what I needed to do if the time didn’t show up. A couple employees conferred and told me I had to go to TelCel, the service provider, if the time didn’t come through.
The TelCel office is near the Sheraton Hotel, and is only open Monday through Friday. Well, over the weekend, still no air time. So I still couldn’t use the phone. I stopped in a TelCel shop where I know the employee speaks English. She confirmed that I needed to go to TelCel.
After Spanish class on Monday I went to TelCel. You get a number and stand in line for assistance. I waited maybe 45 minutes in line and finally got to talk to a clerk. Edgar, the clerk, speaks English, which is a plus since explaining a problem is difficult for me in Spanish. He looked at my phone, looked at my receipt, looked at his computer. Then he went to consult with his supervisor. He came back, looked at the phone, the receipt and the computer again. He went back and returned with the supervisor. They told me that they needed to do further research on this and Edgar would call me the next day. I expressed disbelief that he would call, but he said he would.
Well, of course he did not call so back I went to TelCel on Wednesday after school. I was able to speak to the same supervisor right away. He explained that Edgar had not called me until that morning because he had nothing to report. He said it would be another day or two to resolve and Edgar would call me.
I tried to convince him to at least give me some more days to use the time I already have, but he couldn’t so that. He also couldn’t just give me the 200 peso credit.
Thursday, Edgar called to tell me that I would need to return to Wal-Mart as they were the source of the error. I explained to him that Wal-Mart had already told me to go to TelCel. He was unable to give me a letter to give Wal-Mart explaining their error. I was very frustrated and told Edgar I was certain Wal-Mart would not help me and it would be useless for me to go there. I also said I would return to TelCel on Friday if I couldn’t get it fixed.
We went out for a while Thursday evening and when we came home there was a message from Edgar. He had gone to Wal-Mart himself on his own time after work and gotten them to add my air time. I checked my phone, and sure enough, there was my credit!!!
I told Harold I should take a little something to Edgar for fixing the problem. I made a little bag of candy for him and took it Friday afternoon. I also thanked him for his help and care.
If this were the US, I would have written a note to his supervisor pointing out what a good job he did. But I wasn’t sure if he would possibly actually get in trouble for doing it on his own, so I did not.
When I got home, Harold said Edgar had called in the morning to make sure I had gotten the message and that everything was OK. Harold thanked him for going out of his way to help me. Harold said that Edgar somewhat sheepishly told him that he went to Wal-Mart since his wife asked him to pick up a few items. Harold told him that he should then thank his wife for us!
No matter why he actually went, Edgar did go out of his way to solve my problem and I really appreciate it!
(I left out the detail here of all the bad things I said about TelCel while this was going on)