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BlackBerry owes this guy a girlfriend

By Paul McNamara on Wed, 04/18/07 - 3:01pm.

It's just like in that series of AT&T/Cingular TV commercials where the gaps of silence created by dropped calls lead to terrible misunderstandings - only this case involves BlackBerry and real life.

Just as the smoke is starting to clear from today's massive BlackBerry blackout, Rafael Paz, a loss control specialist for a car rental agency, writes to tell me that he has been "getting my e-mails about one to four hours late minimum since yesterday." And it hasn't just been loss control that has suffered, he adds: "This issue sucks. I've been getting grief about it from my now ex-girlfriend thanks to this delay. She thought I was ignoring her e-mails when I was receiving them hours late."

So I write back expressing my fervent hope that he was kidding about the "ex" part. No chance.

"We got into a really bad argument earlier in the day," he replies. "She sent me a few e-mails and when I didn't respond right away, she thought I was ignoring her and called it off. I didn't get the e-mail it was over until around 2 a.m. today."

Not knowing what else to say, I suggest that perhaps this situation might be covered by his BlackBerry service-level agreement. His reply:

"I'll call RIM and tell them to give me an upgrade on a new girlfriend."

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