Dealing with robots and automatons
ONE OF the curses of the 21st century is an evil device called an automatic answering service. I suppose most of us have suffered from that recorded voice telling us – over and over and over – “Please hold. Your call IS important to us.”
Obviously it’s not important enough to spare a human to deal with it, but apart from that we are assured it is important. These electronic conversations begin with a cheery message, “Thank you for calling Froofram Financial Services. To open an account please press 1. To obtain a balance, press 2. To alter your code number, press 3. To book an interview press 4. To have a heart attack, press 5. Or hold the line for an operator.”
Last week I went to my friendly bank with an enquiry about my bank card and was waved to a telephone booth and told it would put me through directly to the card division.
Of course I first had to be told how important my call was and warned that it would be recorded “for quality purposes”, whatever that means.
Are they worried about my accent? Should I sing a few bars of I then went through all the options as listed above, pressed the appropriate key and was switched to recorded music interrupted every five seconds by the message telling me how important my call was.
I noticed a running timer on the little screen in front of me, showing the minutes slipping by as I waited. After four minutes and 32 seconds of being told how important I was I hung up and walked out.
I’m not getting any younger and I had a dreadful vision of my rotting corpse still sitting in that booth after 10 years, being told every five seconds how important it was.
As I passed the reception desk a sweet young woman asked: “Did you get sorted out, Sir?”
“No, I didn’t,” I grumped and she smiled vacantly and said, “Enjoy the rest of your day, Sir.”
I was quite surprised she didn’t tell me how important my call was to her. I suspect she might also be a robot. Next time I go to the bank I’ll sneak round behind her and see if there’s a little door in her back where the batteries go.
I do hope the bank authorities approved of the quality of my recording. I know it IS important to them.
Last Laugh
A city businessman was driving through Elgin when he saw a farmer in an apple orchard with several pigs standing round him. One by one the farmer would pick up a pig and hold it up so it could bite an apple off the tree.
The businessman stopped and watched the slow performance and eventually asked the farmer:
“Wouldn’t it save a lot of time if you knocked the apples down to the ground and let the pigs pick them up?” The farmer chuckled and said: “You obviously don’t know much about farming, Sir. Time means nothing to a pig.”