Press one for a real person.

“Please pay attention, as some of our options have recently changed.”

Seriously. Does this phrase even mean anything anymore?

You place a call to any business, physician’s office, organization, or any other number in the world and you hear this recording. So is there ANY place that has NOT changed their options?

Why am I asking this?

Because I am weary of the all the “noise” we hear every day…announcements and warnings and instructions that really don’t mean anything. We don’t listen to them anymore, because we don’t believe they are real. What we’d really like is to actually dial a number and speak to a real breathing person.

Every once in a very rare while, when the moon is in the third house and the owl flies with a stick in its mouth against the west wind, that actually happens…a human answers.

Even rarer, a human answers and can help us. Maybe even (dare I say it) answers our question or directs us to the correct person.

I know, crazy talk.  If that happened when I called a cable company, or telephone company, or utility company, it would be dangerous. Because I would faint and hit my head on the desk.

I can’t imagine that all these automated answering systems are really saving anyone money. Not if you equate efficiency with economics. Invariably, you have to suffer through all the possible options before you finally arrive at the final one…which is the number you press to  speak to someone. Which you could have done at the beginning if a person had answered.

And I also love how every time I call, no matter what day, time, or month, I hear “We are experiencing an unusually high volume of calls. You might wish to call back at another time.”

What time would that be, if every day the volume is unusually high?

Maybe never?

Some of you can remember the days of party lines. Of telephone operators who were there to help you. Even (gasp) pay phones.

Others will laugh at such antiquated ideas, and shake their heads thinking how far we’ve come, and how much better everything is. Really? It didn’t used to take hours to actually call and take care of a matter. You didn’t have to figure which day of the week would be most convenient to call. Hey, we boomers and beyond remember a certain secret agent making calls from his shoe phone.  Apple hasn’t come out with one of those yet!

Having worked as a writer in advertising, I’ve had to type the phrase “Please call for more information” a billion times on marketing materials. It just would be nice if it were a real invitation occasionally.

Number, please….

 “The bathtub was invented in 1850 and the telephone was invented in 1875.  In other words, if you had been living in 1850, you could have sat in the bathtub for 25 years without having to answer the phone.”     Bill DeWitt