That’s all I want to hear. Please.
I’ve just rung nine different schools, to leave messages for various people to call me back tomorrow. Except such a simile plan was foiled. Only four of them have answering machines! And stunningly, two of the others have an automated menu, with no feckin’ way of leaving a message. :mad:
I pay my membership to read an intelligent message board and make the occaisional post and this is the best rant you can come up with…
FUCK!
There at least it’s now pit worthy.
Out of ten I give this a “To leave a message Press” 1.
[/End hijack]
And it rapidly goes down hill after the first post!
Automated menus are the Lord’s divine murrain upon the poor huddled mortal multitudes!
A POX on whoever thought up automated menus! I use the TTY relay service, right? So I have to wait for the relay operator to listen to the lot and type it in as they go, then make my decision which button I want to push, and then tell the operator which button to push.
All this to-do quite frequently leads to the machine deciding that nobody’s on the line and HANGING UP.
May whoever invented them be struck blind and deaf, and infested with the plague of a thousand thousand syphilitic camel flies!
Howzat?
Of course, the only thing worse than automated menus are “Voice Only” automated menus.
Yes, the automated menu sucks. But when you press “1” it knows you’ve pressed “1.” There’s no uncertainty. You may end up stuck in some neverending hell trying to dig your way into (or out of the system) but at least the system understands your feeble, desperate attempts to communicate while it’s telling you “That is not a valid selection; please listen to the menu and make another choice” and laughing in a cold, mechanical, maniacal fashion…
But then, there’s the horror of the “Voice Only” menu:
“Say ‘1’ to place an order; Say ‘2’ to cancel an order; Say ‘3’ to reach our customer service department”
“1”
“I think you said ‘7’ is that correct? Say ‘1’ if that’s correct. Say ‘2’ to make another selection”
“2”
“‘7’ was not a valid choice. Please say ‘1’ to place an order; Say ‘2’ to cancel an order; Say ‘3’ to reach our customer service department”
“WONNN”
“I think you said ‘1,’ is that correct? Say ‘1’ if that’s correct. Say ‘2’ to make another selection”
“I am sorry, ‘10’ is not a valid choice. Please hang up and try your call again later.”
And then it hangs up on you. If you’re lucky. If not, you get the joy of trying to enter in a 38 digit code - orally. Which it won’t understand. And under no circumstances will the fucking disembodied voice from hell connect you to an actual human that does (occasionally) have voice recognition abilities.
And then you have the fun of trying to place a call from your work phone on a break, only to realize the whole office will hear your business as you have to yell it into the phone. Then you try to find some place semi-private to do this from your cell phone, while people look at you funny as you over-enunciate numbers or words into the phone…
Okay, I just have to ask, what was the simile plan?
To leave a message like a prarie dog going into its burrow?
To deposit a message like an arrow striking its mark?
To convey communication like a brick to the head?
To deliver a message like unto an Angel’s function?
I got one that just drives me crazy
Please listen carefully as our menu has changed
Jesus Christ on a fucking pogo stick are you guys such ego maniacs that you have deluded yourselves into believing that when I called your sorry asses nine fucking months ago, I was so fucking overwhelmed by the wonderfulness of your voice mail system that I memorized all of its options? I mean come of for crying out loud, I often have trouble recalling what I had for lunch yesterday, and you assholes think that I memorized your voice mail options? Particularly since the last time I called you was January. :wally
Un-fucking-believable
“Our menu has changed” is only helpful for those of us who have to call your office on business six times a day. So, after a week, take the stupid message off. My notes say here “dial 555-1111, opt 1, 5, 7 to get Judy’s voice mail” and I’m only going to listen to the message ONCE through after my speedy button-tapping doesn’t work before I change the notes to “dial 555-1111, opt 17, 2, 4” and that’s IT. I don’t want to have to sit through “our menu has changed, blah blah” six-twelve seconds per call, while the other line is ringing, just because you changed it in JUNE!
What bugs me is the cell phone messages. Specifically, the kind that when you set up the message, it asks you to say YOUR NAME. I don’t want to hear generic female voice “You’ve reached the voice mailbox of” your voice “This is Bob Smith, I’m away from the phone right now, but as you should know if you have lived anywhere with phone service in the past 20 years, you can leave a message and I might actually listen to it sometime in the next week, so I’m going to explain how you can leave that message for me, m’kay?” generic female voice “To send a page, press one. To leave a voice message, wait for the tone, which will be approximately thirty to forty-five seconds after you started dialing this number and listening to all that previous crap that the idiot who owns this phone decided that you MIGHT NOT KNOW.”
My parents, the last two holdouts in the country, finally got cell phones, so now that everyone has them, can we stop waiting around while people explain how to leave a stupid voice mail twice?
Corr
Well, I do have my phone banking options memorised 
If they changed those, I could well be in the shit - sending my pay to china via my B-pay options if I’m not careful.
But I agree with the rest of the pittings of the voice menus. I hate them all to death, especially the voice-recognition ones.
There are numbers I’ve been calling for ten years that have the exact same menu options they’ve always had, yet they still tell me that their menu options have changed.
Piggybacking. . .
How about when I call your movie theater, you tell me what’s playing and when.
There’s one place I call that says, in the paper, and in an announcement when you’re there, “always call the day of the show to verify show times.” Fine.
I dutifully call. . .
Hello, and thank you for calling the historic Senator Theater. Built in 1939 in Baltimore Maryland, the historic Senator Theater is on the list of National Historic Buildings. The theater is located at blah blah blah. . .
Oh, jesus, just give me the freakin’ show times.
. . .please visit our website and join our expanding email list for future shows and special events. Upcoming movies include blah blah blah. The senator box office accepts cash and mastercard and visa. If you enjoy any shows at the Senator please tell your friends. . .
Show times, you fucker. SHOW. FUCKING. TIMES. Why on fucking earth do you think I’m calling, a history lesson?
. . .now showing at the Senator Theater, “The Constant Gardener”. . .
Ah, here we go. Showtimes.
. . .based on a John Le Carre novel, starring Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Wiesz and directed by blah blah blah, rated R with a running time of one hundred twenty minutes. . .
No, no, no. Please shut up. I know who is in it. I know who wrote it. I don’t need a movie review or a plot synopsis. Oh, my kingdom for a fucking show time.
. . .For Wednesday, August 7th, 2005, show times for “The Constant Gardener” are. . .
"Trunk, where did you put the put the paper towels."
*Thank you for calling The Historic Senator theater. We hope you enjoy your show. Click. *
:smack:
You think I’m exaggerating? Call 'em.
I assume they do that to scare you into actually listening to the options (instead of just pressing zero to get an operator, which is what I do). Because the reason why automatic-voice-response systems give you all those options is only for the business to track why people call. And then they can make more things automated if that’s what the results show and get rid of “unneccessary” real, live operators.
The only time I can tolerate voice-activated menus are when they also offer you the option of pressing the damn buttons, too. Especially when I’m using my cell phone, since we live in an area that’s semi-dead for all cell service, as far as we can tell, so signals are often sub-optimal.
Although I will say that the T-Mobile voice-activated system is downright scary in its ability to understand and respond to complete sentences on my part. The voice answers me cheerfully, identifying what I’ve asked for and telling me it’ll help me with exactly what I just asked for. A good voice-activated system is a thing of beauty.
Please enter your account number followed by the pound sign.
Thank you. A customer service specialist will be with you in…3…minutes.
Do-do-dee-doo
“Hi this is Melony, can I get your account number?”
Gah. You’d think that those companies would realize how much that annoys people. And I know for a fact that the technology exists to transfer that information to the rep as soon as your account comes up.
Again, entering your account number and having the rep ask for it again indicates that they’re collecting that data for their benefit, not the customers.
Wait, before we get to Melony somebody has to explain to me why their computer cannot recognize that you have punched in 12 or 15 digits without having to be told by the press of the # sign.
Jeez can’t their computer count?
I’ve seen phone menu systems where they wanted you to press pound after entering a four-digit credit card expiration date. And yes, I seriously hate having to repeat all that info after I already entered it. WTF, do all of those places assume that during the hold time - though considering the length of some of those I can understand their concern - I might’ve been kidnapped and the kidnapper is now attempting to check on my cable installer appointment for me?
I think being asked one piece of the information makes sense…I’d hate to think of the complications if the queuing system hiccuped, somebody else got connected with my account details, and they happened to be the type of person that would take the opportunity to act maliciously. But repeating all of it is annoying.
Likewise with pressings the pound/hash sign…if I accidentally hit a number twice, I’d rather the system picks me up on pressing five digits and hash, than taking the first four as a completely incorrect entry and perhaps dumping me out of the system.
I just hit 0 repeatedly until I get a live person.