Best Business Practices

About a week and a half ago I dropped my phone on the pavement. It was open at the time and I looked it over and it seemed fine. I dialed my brother's number and put the phone to my ear, but I didn't hear anything. It soon dawned on me that something was wrong with the phone. After a little experimentation, I realized the phone would only work on speakerphone. Now almost 14 days later it continues to do this, but intermittently. Sometimes it works like it should and sometimes not, but there is no predicting. I took the phone to VERIZON WIRELESS and the lady was very nice and suggested that the problem could be that I hadn't updated my phone and the data was outdated. I tried to explain that it wasn't a data issue but a mechanical one. She said that it didn't really matter. I still had to do the update and needed to demonstrate what was wrong with the phone. Remember the intermittent part? Um, yeah. A little hard to predict when the phone will work or won't. My option? Nothing. She told me that they couldn't replace, repair, or generally do anything until I am due to get a new phone in November. NOVEMBER. I kindly asked her when my prison sentence would be up with VERIZON WIRELESS (and then I speculated that 2012 sounded about right). As it turns out I will be paroled in March but if I want to get out of my contract before that they will expect me to pay a penalty of approximately $34,000,000 - give or take a few zeros. So if I talk to any of you on the phone just remember that the conversation is potentially being monitored by anyone that happens to be in the vicinity.