Don’t insult my intelligence
We’ve come a long way in today’s society when it comes to communication. There’s pretty much no limit to how we can find and talk to someone we want at any given moment, whether it be through email, SMS, or an online social network such as the now ubiquitous Facebook. Even though we have all those tools at our disposal, as a society our primary means of communication is still through the good ol’ plain telephone. Despite the fact that all the other methods are arguably more efficient and non-arguably more convenient, we still have the tendency to pick up the phone, dial a number, wait for someone to answer, and then talk to someone who’s probably taking a crap or cutting their toenails with their teeth. Yet, we still choose to partake in this rudimentary method of communication on a daily basis. However, there is a growing epidemic I feel obligated to bring to your attention. It is a phenomenon that has the potential to rip apart the petite string of fabric that separates sanity from insanity. I’m talking about none other than this famous line:
“Thank you for calling, please listen carefully, as our menu options have changed.”
If you’ve ever picked up a phone and called any medium to large size business, you’ve heard this or a variation of this line many, many times before. I can’t stress how insulting and infuriating this makes me. How come your menu options have ALWAYS changed? How long do you keep this message active on your Doofus-R-Us business line? What is the statute of limitations on the “always have changed” menu options that would predicate you removing the goddamn message so I didn’t have to hear it every time I call your crappy telephone system because I actually want to TALK to someone about what is more than likely a problem on YOUR end that I need fixed. I don’t care that your menu options have changed; I just need to speak to a representative. There is no standard here either – pressing “0” might take you directly to an operator, or it could put a hit squad out on your Grandmother… you never know. To make matters worse, most companies are moving away from the touch tone “Press 1 for X, press 2 for Y” style of phone tag to actually asking you to SAY what you want. If you can’t trust me to actually listen and press the right goddamn option number, what makes you think I believe your baby Skynet voice-recognition robot is actually going to accurately interpret what I’m actually saying and place me in the correct queue? And DO NOT get me started on “Press 1 for English, 2 for Espanol”…My keyboard is already starting to smell like burnt flesh.
My solution is this - when I pick up the phone to call your business, just put me on the phone with a live operator from the jump. Don’t make me play the “guess which one is which” game with your menu options or have to speak like a down syndrome patient to get your robot to understand me. I have other things to do.
