My Cell Phone #2

I even surprised myself that I remembered to check the number of minutes remaining on my prepaid phone, before a Board of Trustees call this evening. The computer that answered the phone said, “10 shekels and 89 agurot.” At about 1 shekel per minute (at 25 cents it’s not cheap), I knew I needed to add minutes. I called Pelephone, the carrier, and an agent answered. He was helpful in English as I gave him my passport number and credit card number to add minutes. I suppose it’s possible that somebody is making Mastercard charges in the shuk, as I write this, but he assumed me that 185 shekels would appear in my account in minutes. Five minutes later, the computer gave me the same 10 shekel balance. Ten minutes later, the computer gave me the same 10 shekel balance. I called Pelephone and without much difficulty found an English-speaking agent who said to give it a few more minutes. 30 minutes later, the balance was 10 shekels. This time a different agent recognized me, after I explained my story, and he said, “Amit told me. On our computer it looks o.k., so if it doesn’t work in a few minutes, you have to visit a Pelephone office.” I just love this technology!
January 22, 2009
My Cell Phone #2 (continued)
As I waited for the #25, the #24 pulled up to the stop. I mother folded up the stroller for her toddler and as she was about to board the bus with her toddler in tow, the elderly man in front of her, having already climbed the first step, bent over, reached out for the little boy and made sure he was safely aboard.
I exited one block from Dizengoff Center in order to go to the Pelephone counter in the mall. A young woman was pulling off the tarp and Windexing the counters as I approached at about 9:40. “Aht midaberet Anglit?” I inquired. “A little,” she said with the shake of her hand. She understood my problem, took the phone and called, apparently to speak to a few computers, because after 2 minutes, she handed the phone back to me to speak to the agent on the line. After explaining my plight, the agent said, “It’s not possible for you to pay by credit card. You must go to the Post Office to purchase minutes or go to a stand and make sure they enter the minutes. Do you have a bank in Israel? The company checks with the bank.” “No, I don’t have a bank. At the airport and on the brochure, it says that I can add minutes in two ways. One way as you have described and the second way with a credit card. It’s very clear on the brochure,” I pleaded. The brochure must be wrong and what they told you at the airport was wrong,” she asserted! The attendant then directed me to a Change stand on the 3rd floor to buy some minutes. This man with a cleanly shaved head asked in English if I wanted to special card of 200 minutes for 120 shekels. The only contingency was that I had to use them in 30 days. At the rate I was using minutes to get into the gate at Sheafutim and other needs, I was confident that they minutes would go, so I asked for the special deal. He shuffled through a box of cards from numerous plans and companies. He opened a 120 shekel card from Pelephone, entered the PIN and got no response. He then noticed that the card had already expired, in March of 2008. He looked over his entire stack of cards and they had all expired, so I was back to the 93 shekels for 100 minutes. Tomorrow, I am going to visit a Pelephone service/sales office on Allon Yigal, so the story is sure to continue.
I walked along Dizengoff until it turned into Kaplan, a wide avenue with many skyscrapers towering above, heading to the HaShalom train station to catch the train to Bet Yehoshua. While waiting for my train, a man approached and asked something in Hebrew. I heard the name Natanya, the station just beyond mine, so I confidently said, “keyn.” I hope he got to his destination.

January 23, 2009
My Cell Phone #2 (continued, continued)
I called Pelephone service to re-confirm the address for the service/sales store. 76 Yigal Allon. This was the third person who gave me that address so I was pretty confident as Linda and I climbed into a cab and said, “shivim shesh Yigal Allon” and then to be safe, at least to me, “76.” The driver spoke moderate English so when we said the Pelephone service center he called his dispatcher. It took at least three different opinions about the location and we seemed to be heading in the right direction. We even made to Yigal Allon and were following the addresses as they declined, 114, 95, 89, and then the driver turned left for a short block and then right. He stopped and pointed to the Pelephone sign, but it sure didn’t look like a sales/service center, rather more like a dispatch center for Pelephone service cars. Indeed, a man came up and asked what we needed. I pulled out my phone and without saying a word, he said, “oh, you want that office over there,” pointing to the store at 76 Yigal Allon. I guess the driver and dispatcher had at least 3 opinions about where the store was.
The office had the feel of a cross between an Apple store and a post office. One section had showcases with different cell phones and related products displayed. Otherwise, the large room was lined by what looked like individual counseling stations, with clerks and customers engaged in a cacophony of conversation. The white-coated clerk at the door handed me number 127 and said about 10 minutes, but the next thing I knew, the electronic tote board showed “127” and #22. I counted up the stations, that seemed to end at 20, so I returned for help to the nice lady in white. She lead me across the room through a door over which were the numbers 21-25, and brought me to a private room, where “Chen” was sitting.
I was here to clarify the ways to buy minutes after many minutes (hours?) on the phone and at Dizengoff Center, so I was confident as I sat down in my own private room with an agent.
“Atah midaber Anglit?” do you speak English, I asked, knowing that he would say, “of course,” or “how can I help you,” or even, “yes.”
“Lo tov,” was his response, “not good.”
Foolishly, I actually thought I could accomplish something and Linda even tried to explain in Hebrew. Chen then took my phone and dialed a number, but the computerized response was in Hebrew and Arabic. I gave it back to him and he called another number that left me with internationally annoying “hold” music. He then walked out. For some reason I actually listened to the music for a minute, before marching out to my friend in the white coat and asked for an English speaker. She call a clerk over, fluent in English. I explained the increasingly long story and she then asked for my phone. She dialed *997, waited a few seconds, asked for my credit card and the number of shekels I wanted to add, entered the number, said “it’s checking the card” and 10 seconds later said, “it’s fine.” There must be a Hebrew or Israeli term for the concept of “if you don’t get the answer you want the first two, three, four or five times, keep trying until you get the answer you want.” As of noon, I don’t have any evidence that Amit, who took my credit information the night before last, is in Paris or Eilat, but nobody seems to know why somebody answered the phone when I called the automated number!
Linda and I boarded the #24 from the station next to HaCarmel market. Just past Dizengoff Center, a very unstable elderly man, wearing a kippah and somewhat unkempt, clambered aboard, barely supported by an aluminum cane and with one of the ubiquitous shopping carts in tow. The momentum of the bus caused him to fall into his seat, instead of actually sitting. A few stops later, the momentum of stopping caught him off guard as he wobbled to standing position to exit. The driver, however, did not notice him because he was so slow and deliberate, so as he closed the door, several, including the old man, protested, before the bus could actually start. A girl, probably in her late teens, then rose, offered her arm, took his cart with her other hand and started towards the door. The driver did his part in this caring episode by signaling that he was going to pull closer to the curb to make it easier for the old man to disembark. The girl returned to her seat after the old man was on the sidewalk.