Some people may think I am a fairly normal person, but if they only knew that I harbor feelings of contempt based on one’s voice alone, a hatred for a life form I have never met in person, they might change their mind.
This atypical feeling of hostility that occurs when I hear a particular female voice is a personality flaw that concerns me, but I must admit, it’s true. I can’t help myself. I know it sounds totally politically incorrect of me, but I’ve been driven to these feelings of malevolence through a series of encounters that drove me to want to wipe this particular source of frustration completely out of existence.
And despite the fact that I clearly allow my contempt to show in my voice, what does she have to say for herself? She just calmly asks me for my city and state, or tells me to press one for yes or two for no. It’s enough to drive me mad!
If you have ever tried to make a quick phone call and encountered a human-sounding voice whose mission it is to ask you to jump through a series of hoops just to get an answer to a quick question, you know what I’m talking about.
It’s the dreaded automated telephone answering system. It might sound friendly, but don’t let that fool you. We both know it’s out to get us.
I recently needed to go to the bank, but I wasn’t sure what time it closed. So I called my local branch to find out the hours. A simple thing was dragged out for 15 minutes, thanks to the automated telephone system.
After being told to listen carefully because the options had changed, I followed a series of instructions, pressed various buttons, requested the English language and eventually got a person in another state who wanted to know my bank’s ZIP code so he could determine the time zone my bank was in. By the time I got an answer, it was too late to go. It would have taken less time to drive to the bank and look at the hours on the door.
When I mentioned my frustrations to a friend, she told me about a trip to the movies during which she left her cell phone at the theater.
When she called the theater to ask if anyone had found the phone, she had to listen to a listing of 12 movies, with the times they were playing and various other tidbits of information before being hung up on without being given the option to speak with a human. She had to drive back to the theater and luckily, she got her phone back.
When automated phone systems were introduced, I thought it might be a good idea, but quickly changed my mind.
Before I got through to the bank, I had to call information for the phone number. This call alone got my nerves in an uproar.
For some reason, whenever I call information the computer-generated voice never understands me. In the past this has flustered me, but I’ve figured out that if I say something unclearly immediately the machine will transfer me to a human faster.
But you still have to be careful because if the human operator thinks she understands what you have said to the computer, she will just say “hold on” and quickly give you a number without giving you a chance to clarify it. The key is to make sure you say gibberish to the machine so the human operator has to get on and ask you what you want.
I actually get nasty to automated phone systems and my family stares at me in disbelief as I stamp my feet and yell, “Yes!,” “No!,” “English!,” “Repair!,” into the phone as my face turns redder with each word.
Last summer I had an ongoing problem with my washing machine and had to call the repair service constantly. The frustration of having to hear that voice raised my blood pressure before I even got to the frustrating humans who gave me appointments that no one ever showed up for. It was enough to send me to the doctor. Problem is, the same kind of voice answered the doctor’s phone!
Then there is the automated checkout lane at many stores. I won’t even acknowledge their existence anymore. I’ve tried them, with no success, always feeling like a major fool. They start out simple enough, but if I don’t put my product into the bag fast enough, they start to yell at me and won’t let me continue. Then I put it in the bag, but it’s too late.
I’ve messed up the system many times and had to call over a human to help me. If they have to have a human being standing there to help, wouldn’t it just be easier to have that person check me out? I’ll bet that person has lots of humorous stories to tell about automatedly challenged people like me. At least I hope I’m not alone.
My husband is fascinated with those automated checkout counters and insists on using them despite my warnings. He manages to get almost to the end without incident, chuckling with satisfaction because my warnings were without merit, so he thinks. But upon trying to pay, he always encounters a problem.
Because he’s a man and won’t ask for directions or help, we end up sneaking off the line and getting on a different line to be checked out the old-fashioned way. But even though I point out that it would be faster to go to a person in the first place, he still does it every time, intent on beating the system and proving me wrong. Some folks never learn.
I think it’s a conspiracy. The automated voices are taking over the world and intend to drive me crazy — literally, if we’re talking about the popular global positioning systems (GPS) that tell you where to drive. Sounds good, but no thanks. I’ll stick to old-fashioned maps. My luck, I’ll get one that yells, “Hey, dummy, I said make a right turn! Can’t you follow directions? Now I have to recalculate. Sure I’ll get you there fast, hee, hee, hee.”
If any of you can relate to my experiences and want to leave me a telephone message, I can’t guarantee that I will be able to respond because we just got a new telephone system in the office and guess what voice is waiting to give me directions for retrieving my messages every day?
By the way, I called a department store just to hear the voice for research purposes for this column and I got a human immediately. I give up; they win.
Amy Rosen is a Greater Media Newspapers staff writer. She can be reached at [email protected].