The Emporia Gazette

May 28, 2012

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HAVE YOU EVER become really frustrated over the way robots are taking over the country? I don’t mean elected robots, spewing politically correct dogma to media. Granted, they’re bad enough.

But I’m talking about real robots, machines that interfere with the normal flow of our lives. I happen to be thinking about this because I had some telephoning to do one morning. There were about six or seven calls on my list, all with essentially the same message, but one I needed to deliver in person. On four of these calls, I was invited to talk to a machine and was unable to complete the call. “We’ll call back as soon as we can.”

Okay, what does that mean? Ten minutes? Tomorrow? A week from Friday? There’s no way to tell. Maybe some people can sit by a telephone, endlessly waiting in case somebody calls back. I can’t do that, because I have other things to do. I can’t explain to cattle that they’re not getting fed because I have to wait to see if somebody might return my call. In my experience, calls are returned only about half the time. (Possibly they tried, while I was out feeding the cows).

But some of these were long distance calls. I hate to pay to talk to a machine and then have it amount to nothing anyway. Of course, if the other party does call back, it’s at HIS expense. But then, look at the financial waste. It has cost twice what it should to complete the call, not even counting the loss of professional time at both ends.

I’m not totally opposed to progress. I had one of the very first answering machines in our town, in 1959. That was a case of need. I was a bachelor and there was no one to answer the telephone when I was absent. But that’s a far cry from the way they’re used now.

Take, for instance, just one of the calls the morning I mentioned. It was to an out-of-town establishment I’d been trying to call all week. They have a central switchboard and many telephone extensions. I had asked for the appropriate extension on Monday and listened to a very mechanical “voice-mail” inviting me to leave my number and “Sally” would call me back. Sally didn’t. I tried again on Tuesday with the same result. Wednesday, same thing.

This time, I called back and explained to the switchboard that I really need to talk to Sally or at least some live person. The operator said she’d ring somebody else. After a few rings, the same voice-mail robot answered, same message, with a different name mechanically substituted — “Betty” would return my call.

I didn’t think so. I don’t even know Betty. I know Sally pretty well and she’s not calling me. Another call to the switchboard — I explained, as calmly as I could, that I thought this sort of operation was inconsiderate, inefficient, frustrating and degrading to anybody trying to contact this outfit. I know the building is full of live people and I see no excuse for such insulting treatment.

This time I was finally permitted to talk to a live person. Sally, it seems, was sick at home and wouldn’t be back all week, probably. Okay, but is that any excuse? I could have been told that last Monday. Then I’d call her next week, instead of wasting time and money on a whole series of useless attempts to reach her. And what if I’d been stupid enough to wait by the telephone for a return call?

I see a potential problem here, not limited to this outfit. It’s everywhere. I’ve personally tangled with this in several firms and operations. In one case, I learned that the guy whose voice-mail message promised to call me “right back” had been on vacation for a week. Why not tell me that?

In another, an employee on the road in a company car had some car trouble. She called in from a telephone booth and couldn’t get past her own company’s cute little voice-mail message! I think the robots have already taken over.

See you down the road.

Author and columnist Don Coldsmith lives in Emporia.