The Periphery of the Mind

Just called up Sears Customer Service to check on the status of a previous call and got one of those voice activated systems. As it was starting its first tier of options, I sat in my chair and sighed a little. Apparently in automated phone land this means "You've chosen Parts and Repairs." I immediately bust out laughing, which confused the system; a pseudo concerned feminine voice uttered "I'm sorry. I don't understand you" from deep within a bank of pre-recorded messages. This in turn made me laugh more, which made the system repeat how confused it was. Finally I just started hitting "0" and laughing, trying to compose myself before I spoke with a real person. In the past it couldn't make heads or tails out of a clearly, if somewhat tersely, uttered "yes" or "no", but when I give it non-words it suddenly finds meaning. That it interpreted a "hmmm" sounding exhalation of air as sounding anything like "parts".... It was as if the machine were trying to prove to its purchasers that it could do a good job, that it could help me by golly! Or maybe the machine was trying to express an indifference with a level of apathy beyond what science and Chinese plastics can provide. I don't know.

I've about decided the function of these machines isn't to help people, but to chase them off. Every caller who gives up and goes away is one less person who has to be serviced by an actual technician; and inevitably you're routed to an actual technician as the auto-response system is nothing more than a retarded routing system anyway. Sure it leads to bitter and angry customers when a real person is finally reached, but the poor bastard reading a teleprompter gets paid the same and works the same whether they're dealing with a saint or a person in the middle of a conniption fit.

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