Did you ever wonder how many people died of a heart attack trying to reach someone human online?
I haven’t seen any statistics but I’m willing to bet there are many casualties of this torture. I can easily visualize grandma sitting on the couch with her mouth open, not breathing, her finger still on the phone button pushing zero in a vain attempt to reach a human voice.
Good luck with that.
A woman in Hell, Michigan (quite an appropriate name I’d say) was found by her daughter in a state of rigor holding her cell phone in one hand with a finger from her other hand touching the O. There were still tear stains on her cheeks and a shocked and appalled expression on her face.
The phone was still repeating a recorded message,“ There is a longer call wait than usual. You are number 232 in line. If you hang up your call will be answered in the order it was received.”
As if it’s not bad enough to try and talk to a human being now, we will have to contend with whatever horrors AI will bring.
A friend of mine was trying to reach someone at a billing center. After ten minutes of yelling into the phone, “I want to talk to a person. Hello, are you there? I need to talk to someone. Are there any humans there. Hello, hello, hello.” Her neighbors called the police because they thought she was being attacked and rushed her to the hospital. She was sedated for two days after asking every doctor and nurse who entered the room if they could please put her in touch with someone human.
The saddest part is that the voice recordings never understand what you’re saying anyway. It’s like driving and trying to ask SIRI directions to an address.
“SIRI, I need to go to 123 Maple Street.”
“Certainly,” here are the directions to 146 Apple Street.”
“No SIRI, I said Maple Street.”
“A maple is a species of tree with brightly colored foliage in the fall.”
“No SIRI! Maple Street, Maple Street!”
“I’m sorry I can’t understand you when you are raising your voice. I am not programmed to respond to that. Goodbye.”
Is this progress?
I think not.
Is progress driving people to such a level of frustration they want to take a hammer to SIRI? Or slam the phone down on the recorded voice. Or have a stroke yelling for a human being to pick up?
The companies go out of their way to ensure there is no way for you to even reach a human being. Just try finding a phone number to call and if they do it’s always a wait of at least half an hour.
There is also a problem understanding call centers that are located in foreign countries from where you happen to be.
“Hello, hello is someone there?”
“Hello?”
“Are you human?”
“Garble garble garble. Skip skip skip.
“I can’t hear you what are you saying?”
“Garble, garble, voice drop, garble.”
“I’m sorry is there someone there? Does anyone speak English? I only speak English. Can someone hear me? Can someone help me?”
“Garble garble, garble.”
Now I will say there have been times when I could neither hear, nor understand the person at the other end of the line, and requested an English speaker.
This did help somewhat. But I still had a very difficult time hearing what they were saying.
There is also the problem of how to relax and stop shaking after the call is over. If you do ever finally make contact with someone, you are left shaking harder than a woman entering P. Diddy’s house.
How do you find a way to put a smile on your face, reverse your bad mood and greet the day in a happy-go-lucky upbeat mood after doing battle in get-me-a-human land?
I myself have always found a very crunchy cookie works well to dispel aggression and restore slower breathing.
So what is one to do when one needs assistance with a problem or an issue? Who can one turn to in their hour of total frustration and panic?
A recording doesn’t seem to fill the bill, as they say.
When one is calling about something aggravating, adding to their frustration level to the point of dropping dead, doesn’t seem to be the right response.
Screaming hello into a phone will definitely not lower one’s blood pressure.
Waiting for an hour in a queue won’t relax the heart muscle.
Staying on the phone for an hour waiting for your turn and then being disconnected won’t lower your dependence on tranquilizers.
Perhaps aside from a box of cookies someone can invent a new drug especially targeted for times when one has to deal with call centers.
It would slow your heart rate, avoid your need for human contact and instantly allow you to translate any language other than your own. It could be the miracle drug of the twenty-first century.
Seriously though, lives could be saved.
Phones could be spared being thrown against walls.
Blood pressure could be leveled off.
What a masterpiece of an invention.
Next time someone calls the DMV, Social Security or any government or billing office, instead of going into panic mode a simple pill popped at the right moment could solve the problem.
Now I know you might say it’s because I come from the hippy generation that I seek a pharmaceutical remedy to my issues, but in this case what other options are there?
Big tech is not going to stop innovating and with each new one, Baby Boomers are driven crazier.
We yearn for the time when we could talk to a person. Have a conversation and resolve an issue.
We are built to only react calmly to recordings of Johnny Mathis.
This new world is quite foreign to anyone who grew up when face to face conversations were the norm.
Now social media has taken over and young people talk though their computers.
Soon AI will speak for all of us.
When that day happens, I will be happy to let AI call and resolve my problems, while I happily crunch my cookies and milk at my leisure.
Who says Baby Boomers can’t get with the program? “Hello, is anyone there? Hello, hello, readers are you there?”
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