Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Does this happen to anyone else?

I think like most mothers, when I attach a phone to my ear it is a signal to my children to either immediately start fighting or bombard me with *urgent* questions. Aside from the obvious problems resulting from all that, lately I have been struggling with the voice-activated menu functions found on most 800 numbers. Now these non-human operators allow you to either enter your information or speak it. That is all well and good until your toddlers start screwing up the maching b/c they won't stop yelling at each other or you while you are trying to get a human operator on the line. I keep getting this "I'm sorry, we were unable to understand your request. Please listen to the menu again and choose your...blah blah." I just called Target online services and I swear I think my kids nearly brought down the whole system. Did any of you see the movie Total Recall back in the late 80's or early 90's when Arnold is dressed as a woman going through customs and his computer chip malfunctions and he can't stop saying "two weeks". I think my kids will eventually do that to an 800 number automated system some day.

3 comments:

Meg said...

I am laughing sooooo hard right now......having said that- I totally relate! One time I must have screwed up target with that voice automated return thingy and ended up getting the item 3 times!!!!! so I called to try to figure out how to return the "extra 2 items" got someone in India and ended up receiving broken dishes instead.......so who knows- check your mail in a week and see what gifts target has sent you!!!!!! have a good one!
Meg

t~ said...

Happens allllll the time! Not sure who I'm more annoyed with: my kids or the idiot who designed the system. Obviously it was a single man who thought that would be a great way to do business....what a fool.

Tawni said...

You mean *urgent* questons like -"can I have a fruit snack?" or "can you start a movie?" or "did you know so-and-so was hitting me in the kidney?" - I SO know what you are talking about...to kids "phone = i need to bug mom"...it's bizarre.
I am cracking up over Tracy's comment about a single man and the automated system - it HAS to be true. No woman was stupid enough to think it would work.