It's A Witch! Drop A House On It!

     Somewhere lives a computer programmer who should be drawn and quartered.
     He/she would be the person who came up with the idea that the already frustrating task of making a phone call to a company and having to go through endless selections and button pressing is lightened by creating something called “voice recognition.”

     In case you don’t use a phone much or are otherwise secluded from the real world ‘voice recognition’ is a computerized answering service that is put in place by companies that have a horror of actually hiring someone to talk to their customers.  
     In the past this was done by requiring you to press an infinite number of  telephone keys as instructed by an electronic voice.  A voice that is the sister of the briskly efficient but cold  operator with the odd Bo ‘sun pipe whistle that tells you that ‘you have reached a number that is disconnected or no longer in service.’  
     This is not intended to be a service.  This is a maze that sometimes resembles the old, old joke about the house of ill repute that effectively channels the customer through a series of doors only to exit to a “You’ve been screwed” sign never seeing a girl during the whole process.  The thing is intended to make you do anything but talk to a live person.

     This dementia was not enough.  No.  They had to invent a toy they have called  “voice recognition” which is a computer program that, according to the lying thieves that sell it, can understand the spoken word in Amerenglish.  
     They have created two voices to run this thing.  One, of course, is female.  She sounds so bright and happy you suspect she has a script writing doctor  who is a real specialist.  I, for one, cannot visualize a human face to this voice.  What I see are the brown haired pretty women rendered by commercial artists for appliance ads.  She’s a lot friendlier sounding than the telephone company’s woman but don’t let that fool you.  The end result is still the same with a demonic difference.

Before, when you had to deal with the button pushing, your coworkers knew what was happening because they could hear you muttering darkly to yourself while you hammered the suggested button code but with the new ‘voice recognition’ things are a little different.
Now you have Sally Sunshine telling you to “Say what your problem is.” and gives you several examples, none of which are remotely similar to what you’re calling about.
So you gather your thoughts and part of you wonders whether to talk in a normal tone or perhaps talk a little more loudly…you don’t know if it  has its hearing aid turned up.  And while you’re getting ready to speak she gets impatient.  She’s sunny and cheerful about it but still she says “I didn’t quite get that.” or some such so you know right then you’re dealing with a hearing impaired robot.  as a matter of fact, “I didn’t quite get that.” is its favorite thing to say.
Great.
But you soldier on.
     On simple things like “Yes” or “No” she performs brilliantly.  But god help you if she needs a number.  That will result in a back and forth comedy of errors which she may or may not get right.
     Argh!  
In frustration you hang up.

     You realize, too late, that you have to go through the whole process all over again to transact your business but duty calls and you go back to the firing line.  Then you find another problem.  
     Not all of us have the elocution of a Shakespearian actor.  Some of us have diction of startling clarity but truth be told, most of us do not have this clarity and some of us even have small impediments, lisps, etc.
     
     So you have to deal with getting her to understand simple commands and responses to her questions.

            From time to time you realize that you’re not talking to a real person but to a machine and you can’t help feeling like the idiot  you appear to be…your co-workers  are snickering under their breaths because you are trying to reason vocally with a machine and the machine doesn’t care in spite of it’s puppy-happy tone. The machine won’t let you pass unless you tickle it’s electronic sensors with the right sound waves to trigger the circuit.

            You have no choice.

            Sally Sunshine pauses for a commercial and ecstatically tells you you can go to their website at www/itainthereeither.com.

            If you thought you could have fixed it at a website you would have gladly gone to avoid this insanity.  

            You curse the cyber-woman most foully and she doesn’t flinch.  She asks you to repeat yourself because  “I didn’t quite get that.”

            

            There is, however, a solution.

            If you keep punching ‘0’ often enough it waits until you are about to smash the receiver on the edge of your desk and rip the speaker from your speakerphone it grudgingly it puts you on hold and sullenly punishes you by playing the latest CD they found in the three for a dollar crate at a garage sale.

            After ten minutes of this it passes  you to a human….        



…in Bangladesh… a rookie in Bangladesh…