I don’t know about you, but one of my major pet peeves of modern living is these automated phone answering systems. My first complaint is that they always say, “please listen carefully as our menu options have changed.” Since it is usually the first time I have called, so what? And even if it isn’t, I doubt I would remember their menu options. This statement just bugs me to no end. Just fyi to anyone designing these things, people hate being bossed around.
The other, and perhaps the largest, complaint I have is that they never (and i do mean never) have a menu option that addresses my question. I would not be calling them if this was a simple question answered in their web site FAQs.
So . . . my goal whenever I encounter an automated answering system is to get past the machine and get to a live person as soon as possible. I decided to refer to the Principles of Applied Stupidity to help me deal with this problem, and I have come up with a fabulous solution.
The situation uses two of the principles, which are: one) never follow proper procedure and two) when smart meets dumb, dumb always wins.
So when I get an automated answering system, I simply do… nothing. You see, when they say, “to continue in English… press one,” what they are not telling you is that they’re also saying “to admit to being able to speak english, not being deaf, having full control of at least one finger, owning a touchtone phone, and having the blind willingness to follow recorded orders from a stranger . . . press one.” These phone answering systems have to allow for a few grandmothers in Dubuque who still have rotary-dial phones, as well as deaf users, and so on. If you don’t push any buttons, well, I admit this only works about half the time, but it is really fun to listen to the automated voice prompts get more and more frustrated with my lack of a response.
Sometimes they try to get clever and use voice-recognition software on top of the touchtone. My goodness, who do they think they’re dealing with? I just mutter nonsensical things in faux Polish. The system just gets more and more frustrated, and when it finally blows a fuse, it defaults to sending me to a live person, which is what I wanted in the first place.
Someday they will make a computer that can cope with an idiot like me who refuses to follow the system, but that someday is not today.
© Justin Locke
