Is everybody you call an automated recording???

All right, I get it, real live, flesh and blood people are expensive. They need to make at LEAST minimum wage to even attempt to get by in our current economic climate. A human being needs/DESERVES health coverage, and benefits for eye care, dental etc etc etc.

So logistically I get why SO MANY FUCKING companies have computers answering their phones. I’m WITH YOU. I know why you’re doing it. Hell, even one of the numbers my daughter called today, to get some information, pertaining to HERSELF, was solely, and entirely handled by an automated system. Which I guess works fine, if it’s working fine. If everything is in order, the system works, it’s quick, efficient, no nonsense, move along sort of service. But, what happens when something is missing? For example one line on a document isn’t filled out, or was filled out, but it is incorrect, what happens then?

Well if you’ve ever been on the end of this stick, the one where not everything on your document is correct, but you only have the option of dealing with a COMPLETELY 100% AUTOMATED system, you already know the answer to this question…

NOTHING HAPPENS.

Sweet fuck all happens.

You get zero answers, you get zero help, zero resolution, and zero options.

N.O.T.H.I.N.G

You get nothing.

Now, I bet you’re like me. Long ago you, figured out that when shit isn’t going your way with one of these automated “HELP/CONTACT US” lines, you know that if you hit 0 enough times, eventually you get a real live, human being to chat with, to assist you in figuring out a resolution to your issue. Well, this is not the case with this phone number my daughter had to contact today, in LA. It was dragging on, and on, and on, and on. None of the “press 1” or any of the other buttons up to 8 was what she needed, so finally, I grew frustrated and hit 0000000000 on her behalf.

Clearly she has been down this road before with this particular “contact us/help” line because she casually looked over her shoulder and said “Mom, there is nobody there to pick up the call…” just as the words finished rolling off her tongue I heard the tinny recorded voice say to us:

“Due to budget cuts, and lack of funds in the LA district we can no longer provide you with a person that you can speak to, please press the appropriate number for your question, 1 for blah blah blah 2 for whatever whatever whatever…”

No matter how many times we pressed 0, no matter how many times we listened to the menu, we could not find the appropriate number for her question. And now, now we need to drive to downtown LA to get our question answered, hopefully, prayerfully by a living fucking breathing human being.

Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm