Yesterday I realized the hut wasn't going to pack itself or do any other moving related chores, so I set to work on the dreaded task of getting public utilities set up to transfer.
It was a lot like navigating a laboratory maze designed by Professor Bunsen Honeydew and monitored by a stoned Beaker: one dead end after another and they keep moving the cheese around. Adding insult to injury, just when the cheese is within reach, you get drop-kicked back to the main options phone menu for following the incorrect path.
When I was on hold with the gas company, a deceptively friendly robot talked me into letting the next available customer service rep call back instead of continuing to hold.
I only agreed out of hunger, weakness, and disorientation. And just when I was beginning to suspect that I'd been stood up by a computer, the phone rang.
It was the robot, calling back.
He put me on hold.
But later, I was talking to another robot at the cable company who was so convincing that I momentarily forgot who I was dealing with and tried to crack a joke.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but I don't know how to interpret that sentence."
He also kept apologizing whenever it was taking him too long to "pull my information up on his computer," even making very convincing typing noises in between his nervous little outbursts.
Whenever I remembered that I was talking to a robot, I'd get really pissed off at the cable company, playing me for such a fool. Did they think that a few random sound effects would be enough to assuage the indignity of conducting a fifteen minute conversation with an inanimate object?
But then I'd picture the robot tapping away at his little keyboard, a miniature zen garden set up under the fluorescent lights of his cube, framed pictures of the wife and kids perched on the credenza, and I just couldn't hate him.
By the end of our chat, I felt like we had really bonded, so I told him about the 'bot over at the gas company who had stood me up.
He said he'd go over there on his lunch break and kick his ass.
Friday, August 01, 2008
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9 comments:
I can totally see robots now... I had always just thought of computers. Robots are a lot more pleasant to think about - Thanks!
The most infuriating one of all is "I'm sorry, I didn't get that!" after you have repeated your 16 numeral and letter account number for the third time. It also doesn't "get it" if you spell out swear words.
oy. vey. It sounds like great fun at your place! I hope that things get better--or at least more human--soon.
HA! That last line totally killed me
You are way too kind to Robots.
I had to call HP when my laptop died and my robot kept saying "we're having a communication problem" repeatedly when she couldn't hear me. I wish I could have just pressed a button - but NO - they force you to get all intimate with the BOT.
sometimes i wish i were a robot. or maybe i wish that i didn't feel like a robot: i always get those two mixed up.
I always knew that the Jetson's was a genius foreshadowing of our lives.
Oh. Yeah.
I think we should get a discount for taking the "automated" option rather than deal with a crabby real person. At least when you complain to real person you get something other than "does not compute". Although what you get may not be any better.
Hee hee...the worst part of moving. You should fix up two of the robots on a blind date if you have to call them back.
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