Published Oct. 8, 2006 in the Hibbing Daily Tribune
By Aaron J. Brown
I hate to repeat the droning chorus of local columnists, hack comedians and angry technophobes who populate the places in our nation where U2 does not perform, but here I go.
You ever notice that when you call one of those 1-800 numbers for tech support you sometimes get a voice recognition computer to direct your call? The software for this has been around awhile, but is just now being used for the expressed purpose of aggravating people who call service lines.
The other night I had to call the satellite company because our signal was cutting out just about any time the relative humidity poked its little head above 50 percent. Actual rain has the same effect as an electromagnetic pulse in the stratosphere (you know, like from “Godzilla” when they detonate the anti-Godzilla bomb and Raymond Burr tells us we have to live without technology from now on). Point is, I was missing Twins games and getting angry so I called up the company.
By now we’re all used to the fact that you seldom get a “human” when you reach the tech support line of a major company. “Para espańol, la prensa ocho,” and so on and so on. Until recently, however, interacting with these people-bots was a one-way affair. The computer would wait patiently for us to press a number. When I called the satellite company the other day, the automated answering thing actually asked me what I was calling about.
Now, I recognize the irony here. If this was 1950 and I called Philco in regard to the reception on my new TV set, a “real person” would ask a very similar question. The problem for me is that I knew that when I called the satellite company that it WAS NOT a real person, but a computer that would pretend to understand my voice before putting me on hold for 20 minutes. It’s a charade, an elaborate game designed to make me feel warm and fuzzy so I don’t notice the sore forming where the phone has been resting on my face for the whole evening.
Anyway, I wasn’t ready for the voice recognition computer when I called. As a result, I must have appeared confused, kind of like when you go to make a business call and accidentally dial your mom’s number. Christina said something to me when the computer was talking and I got even MORE confused. So I replied with a profound statement passed down through the generations: “Huh?”
Just as I muttered the word “Huh,” the computer was “listening” to me to determine if I was trying to say “Service” or “Installation” or “subscribe to the naked lady channel.” Right after the “huh?” I hear it say the following, “I’ll transfer you to that department.”
“The Department of Huh?” I asked myself. What the heck do they do there? Now I was on hold. I couldn’t even try to reason with the talking computer. (“No, no! Ser-vice! SERRRR-VVVISSSS!”)
It could have been worse. Someone in our house once unleashed a long string of expletives at the voice recognition computer when it wouldn’t transfer her to the right place. I’m sure others have done so, too. I wonder if the computer is taught to know what those dirty words mean? I suppose their tolerance to emotional abuse is just one advantage these machines offer their human overlords.
It turns out that the Department of Huh is the same as pressing zero: a 20 minute wait and an operator that has heard your problem so many times that her scripted empathy sounded like the enthusiasm of the ride attendants at a theme park. “Please-keep-your-hands-in-the-car-and-enjoy-the-ride.” “I’m-sorry-to-hear-of-your-reception-problems.”
They call it progress. I hope this is just the first try at progress.
Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune.