Having A Perpetual Cold This Winter Finally Paid Off

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I had to phone one of those dreaded “customer service” numbers where a canned voice reads a bunch of options way too fast and then elicits a verbal response from the hapless customer.

Anyway, the voice runs through six options@ breathtaking speed, and just then, I let out a loud , sloppy sneeze. The voice says, “We cannot understand your response. Please say again.” I let out a louder sneeze than the last (though not nearly as sloppy as before since Sneeze1 dislodged sandbox sand lodged in the sinuses since nursery school), and the voice says,“We have your response as ‘speak to representative’. If this is correct, Press One Now.” I got a rep right away after pressing “1”.

The secret to getting off the “Press1, Press2, wait til 5 minutes after the flesh has rotted off your bones” cycle is 2 well-timed sneezes.

2

A lot of times in these stupid loops you can press zero to get a person.

3

Another option is to just speak gibberish. There was a website for a while that advocated swearing up a blue streak, on the grounds that voice recognition would not recognize swear words and automatically get you through to a representative, but saying “gliblymooglefanjawemehaway” works just as well as #@*&)!

4

That works. It’s fun hearing the robot woman say: “I’m sorry. I don’t understand what you said. Did you want…?” and then I continue my stream-of-consciousness-ranting until I reach I live person. “I like ham. I don’t like pickled beets. Itchy leg! I hate you, robotlady.”

Other people in the office would turn and stare, though, as they overheard my conversation.

5

http://gethuman.com/