Little Phone Things That Pee Me Off –Talking to Recordings & Other Phone Hassles
Posted: Saturday, November 26, 2011
by Steve Kovacs
The Kovacs Perspective
I hate calling a company and connecting directly to a recording that asks me if it could help me. I usually try to keep my patience but after two or three recorded questions where my answers do not “compute” and “it” asks me more things so they can figure out why I called—I lose it. Thank God, the recording cannot understand the words I’ve been known to call it sometimes because I’d probably get charged with disorderly conduct. In addition, let me be really politically incorrect here; why are there so many recorded phone directions spoken in Spanish after the English version? I am not anti Hispanic or anti immigrant by any stretch of the imagination, on the contrary, every single one of my older than I relatives, every one—are immigrants. I am first generation American and until I was about 16, I thought the correct way to pronounce happy birthday was happy birzday because of the accents of my relatives singing birthday songs! All my uncles and aunts and my mom and dad came to this country at an older age, had strong accents, and slowly learned to function,using the English language. Why not learn our native language as all generations in the past have and still honor, and respect our mother tongues?
Furthermore, when I call and ask for someone and their secretary or assistant who answers the phone gives me a run around instead of being forthright, it gets me annoyed. I just called my insurance agent today and asked for him specifically. His assistant who answered the phone did not tell me if he was available or not, she just asked whether she could help me. Fair enough, but when I told her that I’d rather talk to him she put me on hold and after a few minutes came back and asked me how she might be able to help me. I asked if “George” was available, and again, she said that she might be able to help me. A little frustrated now, I again asked if George was available and she finally told me that he was not. A bit angrily, I exclaimed, “That’s all I wanted to know!” Then she started helping me but I had to call back later and have George make an executive decision that only he could make—lousy telephone run-around service from a usually outstanding company.
Phones are great. In fact, I use my smart phone so much that I’d be lost for a few weeks without it. But how about getting more companies to fork out some money and go back to hiring living, red blooded, human beings for their phone services. In addition, how about being forthright when taking calls for others? Tell it like it is—the old adage that the truth is the best road to follow holds true here. Treat your customers with honesty and they’ll respect you more for it in the long run. And let’s rely on English for our official language needs, as necessity is the mother of accomplishment.
All right, I’ve probably offended someone in this article even though no ill will was intended—just some smooth sailing phone suggestions intended to make many of us less frustrated and amazed.
Phones are great. In fact, I use my smart phone so much that I’d be lost for a few weeks without it. But how about getting more companies to fork out some money and go back to hiring living, red blooded, human beings for their phone services. In addition, how about being forthright when taking calls for others? Tell it like it is—the old adage that the truth is the best road to follow holds true here. Treat your customers with honesty and they’ll respect you more for it in the long run. And let’s rely on English for our official language needs, as necessity is the mother of accomplishment.
All right, I’ve probably offended someone in this article even though no ill will was intended—just some smooth sailing phone suggestions intended to make many of us less frustrated and amazed.
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Top-level comments on this article: (5 total)My worst thing about phones is being put on hold and being forced to listen to the company advertize itself to me! Or else the message is "you are very important to us. Please stay on the line." It's lip service to service, drives me crazy. I agree, companies should spend more money on individuals who give real service. I always shout obscenities when I get these ridiculous messages, and I hope I'm being recorded!I agree---I love that you shout obscenites--me too.ha-ha
Thanks.
Steve
These days, most of us talk to a machine that records the information. Press 1 for .... press 2 for ......press 3 for.......and then we are sent to the destination. Happened to many companies such as the Telephone dept, Credit company, Banks and even the hospital. I can show my patience provided they give me prompt service not letting me on hold too long.
Patience is not a virtue I have--so these phone recordings are a pain in the butt for me. You are a good woman to have the patience and accept it. I'm going to go down fighting to change it---lol.
Thanks for writing.
dittoElle--I loved your comment--never has so much been said with so little......cool!
I totally agree! I once called a company and had the message "Thank u for calling. U r now number one in the queue. Ur call shall be answered shortly" every 3 seconds for 15 min. Drove me insane! At least with people u can ask "OK, now what do I do?"I've had the same thing happen often--drives me nuts too---people...hire people..people are cool and they need jobs!! lol--thanks for writing.
Steve
Hi Steve.
You didn't offend me at all. In fact, I agree with everything you wrote. Especially about learning to speak American English. We could all get through those d*** phone trees a lot faster without the Spanish.
I have to know, was this your pet peeve article? I don't remember if this was in the Story Tellers Group or not. Because, at the risk of offending Tharuna Devchand, I will write that another thing that bothers me is people who use "texting" abbreviations in their "normal" correspondence. Arrgh! :) Boy! I'm in a mood today. :) That "pet peeves" assignment really got me going.
I enjoyed your story!
Hugs,
DianneBoy, I was in a mood a couple of days ago--ha-ha. Anyway, this was not a pet peeve article--it was just a burr I had under my saddle that I wanted to write about.
I just called a local company today where the recording asked me to listen to all their prompts and pick a number to press....sucks...people, what happened to people-ha-ha-??? Thanks.
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