Flip phones, flipping out

I'm sweating it out by the pool trying to fix my tan lines when the unthinkable happens -- my cell phone shuts off. My friend is still happily texting away on her iPhone on the towel next to me and simultaneously streaming Kanye and Jay-Z. I jab the power key on my sad little flip phone and force it to reboot. It does, and lights up with a message informing me that my battery has overheated. Then it turns on and off and on for the remainder of the afternoon.

Of course, life cannot go on this way if I want to survive in the technologically-dependent social realm of my generation. So I rev up my car and make haste to the Verizon store. I arrive and explain my crisis to the sales representative, who cheerily says my phone is under warranty so I will be mailed a replacement for zero charge. I verify my digits and a couple of days later there is a package on my doorstep with my name on it. I am ecstatic.

Then a New York Times article directs my attention to the fact that not many people are sharing my joy. According to the article, 45,000 Verizon Communications employees have been on strike since Aug. 7 along the East Coast. The workers, represented by two unions, are rebelling against the corporation's demand that concessions be made on matters including health coverage and pension plans. Verizon insists on concessions in response to revenue and profit losses because of competing landline, TV and Internet providers.

It quickly becomes apparent that, two weeks into the strike, I'm the lucky one. While negotiations among Verizon executives and workers rage on, customer dissatisfaction joins the scene. Complaints are coming in about delays in repairs and installations of landline phones, web systems and cable TV from homeowners and business owners alike.

I belong to neither party, so how did I end up with the royal customer service treatment? The only effect of my downtrodden phone was a potential miscommunication on the time of my next coffee date.

Business owners, however, are concerned with how substandard communication might affect their sales. So it seems that when workers in one field go on strike to alleviate their economic woes, they are in danger of harming the economic statuses of workers in other fields.

Does that leave possibilities for the corporation caught in the middle (i.e. Verizon) to mend both ends? Or does the dilemma lead to a loss of workers, to a loss of customers, to a loss of a corporation?

Steps have been taken toward a solution. While Verizon executives have not yet admitted that their customer service satisfaction has declined, they announced that they would not accept new orders during the first 14 days of the strike, but would instead focus on the satisfaction of current customers.

As for the satisfaction of the workers on strike? It may take more time for those lines of communication to be repaired. In the meantime, all I have to do is free my new little flip phone from its plastic wrap.

(Public service announcement: Since the writing of this column, the workers' strike ended Aug. 22.)