The Chris Struttmann Report

So the other day I decided to visit my local Quizno’s. As I was sitting there eating my Chicken Carbonara (great sub by-the-way) As I was eating I was thinking the following.

 The sandwich, chips and drink cost me $7.00. Well, that explains why the place is virtually empty! But then I thought, if they could lower their price more people would stop at Quiznos for lunch. That would increase their volume, and that increase should over come loss from the price reduction.

Is it me or is that not a win-win situation?

Many of you know (most of you don’t) that I ordered a new Motorola SLVR from a reputable online source. Now here’s the road that they took me on.

Day 1: Order phone.

Day 2: My credit card couldn’t be authorized.

Day 3: Re Order phone.

Day 8: Phone finally arrives. I un-pack it and it is DOA (Dead on Arrival). Angered, I called the place I purchased it from and their response was to contact Motorola; which I promptly did. Their response was to ship it away for 3 weeks to have them get me a new one, or take it to the nearest Authorized Motorola service center (Orlando) to have them put in a new mainboard.

Day 9: I opted to go to Orlando, I took the day off work and drove all the way over there. When I arrived a turned in the cellphone at the service counter. They took the cellphone back and performed “diagnostic tests” on it which it promptly failed. They said that they couldn’t touch it and to have an RMA opened.

So I drove home, still with a broken phone and contacted the people I bought it from and told them that I want to return it for a 100% refund. They abided, and issed me an RMA number.

Day 10: The dead phone is on it’s way back to California.

Now, let’s evaluate the problem points here…

• Motorola told me to take it to a place 150 miles away that couldn’t fix it.
• The place I bought it is going to try to bill me a “restocking fee” which I will call and have taken off my credit card because I’m not going to pay $19.50 for somebody else’s problem.
• The phone is broken… that’s the big problem here.

As soon as the place I bought it from refunds my money I’m going to go online and get the same model phone from a totally different online store. Sorry Newegg and motorola, you really dropped the ball on this one.

I’ve talked with Crimp about it, apparently they have a Disney sponsorship but they still don’t have a place to work and to quote Crimp himself… “We don’t care about that right now. We got the Disney sponsorship.” (10/16/2006 between 7:45PM and 9:00PM)

He’s tried multiple times on multiple occasions to convince me to “convert” to his team (which still remains nameless) but here are the reasons I didn’t convert:
1) I’m happy here at Voltage and I’m feeling a good year.
2) They have no software department.
3) I didn’t see any real plans or organizational effort.
4) This is Crimp’s senior year.
5) Don’t want to get into the politics game.
6) I could go on but I think you catch the drift.

He says he’s working on Harris, DRS and Sony sponsorships, but that remains to be seen (at least by me).

I’m not trying to bash Crimp’s team. I wish them luck, really, I do. I’m just waiting to see how far it will go. I hope to see them at a regional and possibly even the championships.

–Chris Struttmann