Within minutes, Christi Day, the PR Person who manages Southwest’s Twitter and Facebook pages was bombarded with hate posts and tweets.  Many of which consisted of things like, “F— You, Southwest!”  So what did she do?  She immediately realized the magnitude of the situation and began investigating.  She tweeted back at him and called him apologizing and began collecting details.  Kevin, in the meantime, continued to bash Southwest.  On Sunday, Christi posted a blog post on the Southwest blog telling their side of the story and once again apologizing to Kevin.  There were several details in that post that Kevin just happened to forget in his original telling of the story.  Such as, the fact that he regularly purchases two seats, had purchased two seats for this flight, but then decided to fly an earlier flight.  Therefore, there ended up only being one seat available for him on the earlier flight, and he wouldn’t fit in it (or so says Southwest).

Why am I blogging about this?

Here’s the thing.  He complained on Twitter over the handling of the situation.  Perhaps the pilot was rude to him – we really don’t know.  Here’s what we do know.  What’s the purpose of complaining? To be heard, and to be given a reasonable resolution to your problem.  The company immediately apologized via Twitter, Facebook, and phone and then later wrote a blog post about it.  They gave him a credit for his troubles and a public apology via several mediums.  What more does Kevin want?  The company has done all it can do.  They’ve done exactly what they would do for any customer with the same gripe.  What do I think he wants?  He wants the press for his new film.

Today, he continues to whine on Twitter about the situation.  The AP has written a story about it.  It’s the talk of the media.  That’s what he wanted, and that’s what he got.

Now, Kevin, will you please stop whining like a baby and accept the apology and credit like a normal, mature adult?  Your continued refusal of all apology is only making you look bad at this point.

(And by the way, Kevin Smith blocked me on Twitter after seeing my Tweets about the situation.  I guess I’m special now, being blocked by a celebrity.)

So, that brings me to my point.  I want something new.  I want something different.  I want people to ask to see my phone again.  I want people to go “Oooh, ahh” over my phone rather than, “My gym teacher has one of those.”  Wow, cool.  Thanks.

So what are my options?

1.) Switch to Verizon and get a Droid.  The Verizon network is far superior to AT&T, regardless of whatever scare-tactic lawsuit AT&T tries to throw at them.  The Droid also supports open development and runs Android.  This means that basically, they encourage you to do whatever you want to your phone.  You know, like the DMCA says you’re legally allowed to do?  Apple and AT&T seem to forget this often.

2.) Switch to Sprint and get a Palm Pre.  Regardless of what others say, I’ve personally used the Pre, and it’s fantastic.  The UI is gorgeous and incredibly functional, allowing one to be far more productive than on the iPhone.  The Pre unfortunately has gotten not so much a bad rap as no rap at all.  No one’s talking about the Pre.  I’m not sure why, because it’s great.  The Pre’s WebOS was also written from scratch.  The iPhone OS is incredibly bloated and slow.  It was a port from the desktop version of OSX, and it apparently even includes some line of code from the NeXT Step OS.  That’s ridiculous.  Now, that being said, the Sprint network is far from perfect, but in areas where it is decent, like here in Pittsburgh, the service is faster than AT&T.  The monthly bill would be less, too.

3.) Wait it out for either the GSM Pre or, the next iPhone.  Like Gruber said:

Right. You know who thinks the iPhone 3GS stinks? Steve Jobs. No one is working harder on an “iPhone 3GS killer” than Apple.

Right?  I think Apple knows people are expecting more from the next iPhone release as the 3GS’ was kind of a bummer, regardless of how clever the ads were.

So, what do you think?  Has the iPhone become a status quo device?  Is that OK?  What should I do about my dilemma?  Let me know in the comments!

*Thanks to digitalbear for the image

I’ve been using Cha-Ching since the initial beta giveaway through MacHeist 1.0 years ago. I love the app, both on the iPhone and the Mac, but unfortunately, I have to say I agree with you. I’ve never been impressed with this “company” in terms of release dates or customer support. They never communicate with their customers, ever. That blog post almost caused me to have a heart attack. Cha-Ching 2.0 golden master was supposed to be ready months ago. Yet, we’re still stuck with a beta that won’t even open. I did exactly what you did – I rolled back my clock, added yesterday’s transactions, and exported the file. I’m off to a company who actually cares about its customers and doesn’t give lame ass excused out all the time about how this or that happened. Midnight Apps has been, and continues to be, a shit magnet. Sorry, Juan. I love your app, but you have some serious work to do as a company. Maybe I’ll come back someday, but for now, see you later!

The first card I tried to get was an American Express Blue Cash card.  I filled out the application, and I was denied.  Why was I denied?  Well, the error that TransUnion spit out was about my file not having sufficient credit to score.  This made sense to me.  I had no credit history.  However, what I didn’t understand was, how could I start building some credit if I I couldn’t get a card for the very reason that I had none?  After I got the denied message, I called American Express later on in the night to see what could be done.  The very nice lady on the phone decided to try and apply me for a few more of their cards claiming that each card has different ellegibility requirements.  This sounded like a bad idea to me, but I figured, what the heck.  So, she applied me for three more of their cards.  Denied on all three due to the same reason.  What the HECK?  So, as I always do, I found the company, American Express, on Twitter to see if there was anything else they could do – perhaps offer me a card with a ridiculously low limit?  Anything they could do, I figured, would be beneficial.  They ended up giving me a card linked to another cardmember’s account.  It allows me to build my history, but the account is essentially not in my name (the card, however, is).

Yesterday, however, I discovered (hah) that Discover has a special card designed for students that requires no previous credit history.  GREAT, I thought!  Well, guess what?  I was denied for that card, too!  Why?  Excessive number of credit inquires into my history, said TransUnion.  At this point I was rather mad.  Had it not been for the first person from American Express trying to get me every card under the sun, this wouldn’t be the case.  Frantically, I called TransUnion.  TransUnion said there’s nothing they could do besides mail me a report and they advised me to call Amex again.  I called Amex.  They are going to be able to remove the inquires into my account, but I have to send them a letter and such first.

So, what about the Discover card? Well, after calling Discover and talking to a super nice guy named Ron, I now have a Discover card.  I had to fax him some information about me being a student, proof of enrollment, etc., but he was able to get me a fairly generous line of credit.  So, THANK YOU, Ron.

Anyway, thanks for reading my rant.  Hopefully you can see why I’ve been incredibly annoyed and frustrated over the whole credit thing.  I’m only 18, and I already hate it!  The good news is, I plan on paying off my balance each month; I’m not going to accumulate debt for myself at such a young age.

What do you think?  Did I go through hell, or what?  Leave me a comment with some sympathy!!