Anyone who has ever made a phone call to customer service, cable company, internet service provider, or utility within the last 2 decades has had the never ending horror show of automated phone menus (press 1 for this, press 2 for that, press 3 for something else, press 4 for something you've never heard of ....) and a tune to listen to over and over and over again while you're waiting for an eternity to pass before speaking to a real, live person. And how awful is it when nothing - absolutely nothing on their list is the reason for your call and you resort to guessing (or yelling into the phone).
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Guess wrong and you'll get transferred to that unhelpful automated menu once again to go through it all over again and hope your second guess is right and gets you to the correct place. Guess wrong and you'll go back again for another try.
And then there are the sub-menus. Yes, after you've made your choice from the first list of "why have you called", you'll often be offered another list of choices to make and sometimes another one after that. You'd better guess correctly or you move right back to Square 1.
Some automated menus have progressed to a voice operated system where you either say the number off the list or the reason for your call "in a few words". Riiiiight! Their robot responder apparently doesn't understand English, transfers you to the wrong place, or asks you to "try again".
Most corporations now realize that far too many of us have circumvented their diabolically-engineered-to-frustrate-and-make-us-give-up process by pressing Zero or saying "operator" in order to move directly to a live person. Most of them have disabled that option.
After completing all of your guesses, hoping and praying you arrive at an actual real, live person who can help you, you'll be put on hold. You'll then be tortured with a piece of music played again and again until you're sick of it and wish every musician playing it and the composer who wrote it would be struck by a meteor.
Even worse, they repeatedly taunt you with a recording telling you how "important" your call is to them and thanking you for your continued patience. They also remind you that "all of our operators are busy helping other customers" as if that doesn't remind you that greedy corporations, looking for any way to save a nickel, have diminished their customer service departments to just one guy in Bangalore whom they pay 25 bucks a week with no vacation or benefits.
But the serious kicker is when their automated music has been played so much, for so many years that it's so old and scratchy. All you hear now is crackling (they must be using tape rather than digital). Or it's so loud, you pull the phone away from your ear and then miss the real, live person (speaking softly) who eventually takes your call.
Getting to that real, live person isn't always too helpful, either, but I'll rant on that some other time.
I swear this has been systematically engineered to get us to just hang up and resolve our problem ourselves (or learn to live with having no cable, internet, electricity, etc.). After all, it might be simpler and quicker for us to fix the problem for the corporation rather than have the corporation provide us any service at all. After all, that would cost THEM some money.
TOP COMMENTS
January 13, 2015
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From JaxDem:
In this morning's Abbreviated Pundit Round-Up the discussion revolved around Mitt Romney's proposed presidential run. thejeff pointed out an outstanding benefit should Mitt run again with his comment.
From eyesoars:
Here's one that shouldn't be missed (warning from your host: swallow anything in your mouth before linking reading) by Victim of Circumstance. From Misogynist Cardinal Spews Bigotry by Richard Lyon.
Flagged by Armando and Arilca Mockingbird:
This astute comment by ivorybill reminding everyone about what the real issue is in Je suis Voltaire by Armando.
From your host:
I liked this comment by anon004 which gives Republicans credit where credit is due. From The worm has turned in the Senate, and McConnell doesn't like it by Joan McCarter.
And from that same diary is this gem by bleedingheartliberal218 on Mitch McConnells' being on the other side of the tactics he employed to obstruct the Senate.
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