Nathan
Next I tried live chat and got connected (rather quickly, I’ll admit) with Nathan. We didn’t exchange selfies, so I can’t say what Nathan looked like but if you Google “smiling customer service representatives” you’ll end up with pages and pages of white, handsome or beautiful (take your pick) young people, dressed to the nines, eagerly battling one another to satisfy your every whim. I’ll bet none of the men who do this wear neckties and none of the women wear pearls, but that's what the photos all seem to show. They’re probably sitting there in sandals, shorts and t-shirts with perspiration stains in the arm pits or under their pendulous breasts. I once knew a woman with the most magical, sexy voice you can imagine. She made over $100,000 a year working from her back bedroom in Hoffman Estates—talking dirty on one of those old 900 phone lines. Physically, it would be hard to imagine anything erotic about her grossly overweight and nearly elderly appearance.
The Game
Nathan works from a script, probably dictated by his management. He has to follow all the steps regardless of how many times the customer, e.g. me, may have done these same things before. He was polite and spelled words correctly, although many of his responses were clearly canned (picked from a menu of responses) unless he could type at over 500 words per minute.
We tried all the routine stuff (except changing batteries since I only have one battery) and were unable to identify a solution or problem. We tried different chargers, different cables and so forth. Nothing cured the problem or brought us any closer to a solution.
Outcome
Finally Nathan told me the unit had to be returned. He fired off several of those canned responses warning me that if my unit was broken because of my failure to give it tender loving care, there would be charges applied and my unit would be held for ransom. Warning, this! Warning, that! Samsung is a master of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. When I persisted, Nathan sent me return instructions and a UPS label for the return. (These featured a beautiful, smiling, white, young woman customer service representative, dressed to the nines with a fresh quaff and maybe pearls hidden in her bathycolpian bosom.)
All of this “play nice-nice” left me feeling warm and fuzzy inside, as though I were actually loved. It made the deflowering ritual so much more pleasant! If we’re going to be raped, at least the raper can kiss and say he loves us.
Next are the prophylactic precautions I have taken.