Tag Archive for "stupid"

Yesterday I received a telephone call.  Nothing strange about that but it was not from a human being.  It addressed me by name and asked me if that was who I was and then wanted me to verify who I am by answering security questions.  I put the phone down.  This call came from a major company who I buy a service from.  They have just told me that I am such a valuable customer that they cannot spare the time to have a real person talk to me.  I am only worth being spoken to by a very dumb and stupid machine.  In today’s Politically Correct society I am probably risking being labelled as ‘Machinist’ (Machines are people too!) but I doubt I am alone in getting fed up with automated phone calls selling services and long-winded computerized menus when you phone almost any large company or government department, let alone this new breed of service call.  An answering service when an office is unoccupied or the phone lines too busy is one thing but spending 20 minutes talking to a computer just to find out where you can get an answer to a simple query is something else….and let’s face it, computers are extremely dim.  Not just a bit, oh I put my socks on inside out kind of mistakes, but really and utterly stupid.  If you spelt ‘London Road’ on a letter as ‘London Rod’ there is little doubt the postman would still get it to the right address.  A computer would send it back to you stating coldly that the address does not exist.  Here’s another daft one, when a credit card is processed manually and all the security details match the dim-witted machine asks whether you want to accept or decline the transaction as if there could be any possible reason you would want to decline it when everything matches … DUH!   1984 and 2001 have both past by yet the inhuman vision of a world ruled by machines still looms in the future.  Will it be Hal or Big Brother?