This is a Recording

The Company decides, after a high powered presentation by someone last seen selling insurance, to put in this Digital Call Forwarding service. Not that we were going to fire the Big Chested Mannequin who sat in the Lobby, (one of the V.P.s was buffing her) but that she would no longer be the “entry point” to the Firm. (I thought she stopped being First Entry when the V.P. started boffing her).

Trucks of money were dumped into this Digital System which insures that even if you’re paying for your calls by by the second it’s going to eat two minutes of your life.

The Recording starts with a rousing symphony and a cheery voice doing a thirty second infocommercial on the Greatness of the Company, then going into:

“If you wish to learn about all the services we offer and how we can help you, push 1.”                                       “If you are querying an Invoice, push 2.”                                                                                                             ”If you wish to make a payment to your account, push 3.”

And on and on until 9.

Okay, they’ve run out of numbers. Just to see what would happen, I push 0 and got to speak to the Big Chested Receptionist, Whom,    if you haven’t noticed, isn’t listed as an Option.

I let the system run for a week, then reported this ‘fault’ to the Director, who pushed it up to the top and it came back down to a full meeting of the Board for a decision.

The Entire System was taken offline to be redone to insert the Option to contact the Big Chested Receptionist. There were debates as to whether 0 should be included in the first recording or if it shouldn’t happen after one pushed one of the other numbers.

The debates became nasty. There was one faction which averred, not without merit, that if people knew they could immediately talk to a human being they would defeat the entire purpose of the Digital Call Forwarding Service by pushing 0 as soon as the Recording Started.

There were others who felt one of the options should be reworded so that after selecting the Option, if the problem remained then the ‘0′ could be pushed.

While the wars raged, The Big Chested Receptionist was fielding all calls much to the delight of the public which of course preferred to speak to a human being instead of a recording.