There are days when I wonder about technology.
Has it improved our lives? Certainly. I won’t argue with that. Computers, for the most part, are marvelous inventions and do make our lives much easier. Walt, a good friend of mine, recently purchased a nifty little gadget for $15 – a travel alarm clock that runs on tiny batteries and updates itself by using a GPS-like connection so it always reads the right time. My VCR does something like that as well; once the power comes back on, it sets the clock itself. I love it.
But there are times I want to reach in and tear apart the computer with which I’m working and beat it senseless with its own hard drive.
My favorites are when I’m searching for a customer and our database kindly tells me that no such person exists – even though I know they do. Then, finally, after some random, extremely broad search string I’ll find the person – name, address, phone number and email address all identical to what I’d been trying.
Or like the time, back when I was still using Internet Explorer as my browser, I typed in www.defleppard.com in the address bar and I was told by the window that sprang up:
“We’re sorry. We could not find www.defleppard.com. Could you have possibly meant www.defleppard.com?”
Why, yes, actually, I did! Thanks for pointing that out to me!
Or like today when I called a number to have my name removed for 5 years from “prescreened” lists of insurance and credit card offers and the like. I had to speak into the phone, and the computer had to guess what I was saying; I was warned at the beginning that no live person was reachable.
Once I got past the “Would you like English or Spanish?” it went downhill.
The “conversation” went something like this:
“Please say your name so that I can record it. Wait for the tone!” The voice of my new friend was extremely perky and very female; it sounded like a “live” voice, as in one that had been recorded by a “real” person. But the person to whom it belonged sounded as if, at least during the recording, she’d had a plastic-happy grin permanently sutured to her vocal chords.
(The only relief in the moment was that she didn’t say, “How are we doing today? Please wait for the tone so that we can record!”)
(Bong!) “Heather Self,” I said.
(Bleeps and bloops.) “Thank you. I heard Heather Sleffler. Is this correct?”
Blink. Um.…
“No.”
“I’m sorry,” said the female voice, sliding with a smile crafted in a C&H Factory. “Let’s try again. Remember – you do not have to spell your name. At the tone, say it again.”
(Bong!) “Heather Self.” I made certain to enunciate precisely this time, syllables as crisp and clean as if I’d cut them from paper.
“Thank you! I heard Heather Sowelcha. Is that correct?”
“No!”
“I’m sorry. Let’s try again. Remember – don’t spell the name. Just say it clearly. At the tone, please speak your name.”
(Bong!) “Hea-THUR SelFUH!” I said, enunciating more. You couldn’t get more crispness in a starch factory.
“Thank you. I heard Heather Slaffla. Is this correct?”
My shoulders slumped. I knew it was going to be bad as the call had effectively just begun and my patience was already as thin as cheap facial tissue – and not much stronger. “No!”
“I’m sorry. Let’s try again.” After another long, perky-happy warning about not spelling any letters or words (I didn’t know you could spell a letter, actually, until that moment) the bong! came again.
“Hea-th-err Ssss-eelll-phphphfffffff,” I said, hoping slowly would be better. At this moment a co-worker walked passed, expression furrowed with confused amusment as they glanced at me over their shoulder.
“Thank you. I heard Helarra Felsepha. Is this correct?”
(Muffled grunt from me.) “NO!”
“I’m sorry. This time, please spell your name. Please make certain to speak clearly so that I can understand you. Wait for the tone.”
(Bong!) “H----E----A----T----H----E----R….S----E----L----F.” I was careful to make each letter clean, sharp and spaced with a pause, hoping the computer with the I.Q. of a grasshopper could finally understand me.
“Thank you. I heard Aychel, Eee, Aye, Tee, Ahelata, Eeer, Ar, Efff, Eeeah, Elda, essA. Is this correct?”
(In the immortal words of Dave Barry, “I’m NOT making this up!”)
“NO!” I said, having to curb a grunt-like scream. I couldn’t understand where the computer was even coming up with the “letters” and how it could be mishearing me so badly. Three times later, each try more mangling than the last, the daisy-happy voice said, “I’m sorry. Let’s try your city so that I can find you that way. Please state your ZIP code.”
(Bong!) I did.
“I heard Ninety thousand AY-be five Torrence, California. Is this correct?”
(Sigh.) “…No.”
“I’m sorry. Let’s try again.”
I said my ZIP code again, and, miraculously, she placed me in Portland, Oregon. “Now,” she said. “Please state your mailing address. Wait for the tone!”
(Bong!) I stated my address.
The first time I heard, “Thank you. I heard 9 thousand Aaybell 5-oh-90” – [garbled sound] “—Ekka Ceraderaba Hillocha Boulevard number twelve thousand OH NINE OH AY AY AY six, Portland, Or-y-gon. Is this correct?”
I think my forehead has a dent in it where the heel of my hand hit it. I don’t think any amount of meditation could cure the frustration that had begun to boil up in me. But at least she had me in the right city and state.
Another three times later, my address sounded like I had a tidy little condo somewhere on Jupiter. Or, apparently, what was actually coming out of my mouth wasn’t English, but a bizarre hybrid of Swahili and Russian, with a bit of good old-fashioned Pig Latin thrown in just to spice things up.
You’d think it would simply record my voice saying the words (which I’ve done before and is delightfully easy for both the person leaving the message, and likely the person receiving it), rather than trying to do tone / syllable recognition.
But that would be far too easy. Why make things easy when they could be difficult?
A headache and one set of nicely-ground teeth later, the computer said, “I’m sorry. But I cannot understand what you’re trying to tell me. I will now attempt to look you up by your birth date and social security number.” I did so by punching in the corresponding numbers, and apparently the computer found me, because after a moment of bleeping and blooping at me quietly, the female voice said, “Thank you. You have now been removed from the lists for five years.”
It’s these moments where I wonder about “technology” and I find myself thinking of Perry Mason. He had a super-successful law practice that ran smoothly; between Della Street, his assistant, Gerdie, his receptionist and Paul Drake, his private detective, he spent nine years winning every case but one (and rumor has it two.)
And all without a computer.
Oh, I know the reasoning behind having such a message machine in place. It’s available 24 hours a day and can even have the claim of being more cost efficient than a human. But when the damn thing can’t even understand simple syllables (it’s not like my name is Heleakela’uakka Selfindonopolisadonna, for Pete’s sake), it seems like a waste of effort.
Or just really shoddy programming.
I truly hope that, in some random moment in the future, I’m not having a pleasant conversation with some nice guy who mentions, “Oh, I’m the one who invented the voice-recognition software used for messages!”
He’d likely end up with a martini glass-shaped Adam’s apple.
So maybe I’m not as progressive as I’d like to think. I guess I still have one foot in the 20th Century; I am, after all, a hybrid child.
I still mail in my taxes rather than e-filing. I still have cassettes for some things. I still record on a VCR rather than a digital recorder. I still listen to a CD player at the gym (albeit a CD player that also plays MP3s…but only if they’re on a CD) rather than an MP3 player. I still listen to records – as in those endangered species things made from black vinyl shaped like a big pancake.
I grew up playing video games with my friends as well as Cowboys and Indians in the street later that evening. I had roller skates – the clamp-on kind that you fit around your sneakers. I remember when phone calls were 10 cents and were placed on payphones that had dials (remember the feeling? Turn-zzzip, clickclickclickclick; turn-zzzzip, clickclickclick). I used to watch TV on a black and white set. I remember when AM stations were more predominant than FM.
But, as a minor side note, I do realize that stamps have never been cheap; there is a certain lucidness to cost effectiveness as I learned once when I thought I’d be cute and romantic and mail my mother a card I’d made – from hour house…back to our house.
“You mailed this?!” she said as she went through the mail at the box.
“Yes,” I replied, feeling quite pleased with myself.
She waved it in the air. “This cost 15 cents! You could have just put it in the box for me to find!”
“But it’s not the same!”
“Or you could have just tried to mail it and it would have come back for insufficient funds!”
“But – it wouldn’t be the same! I wanted to surprise you!”
(I think there was a muffled grunt of frustration from her at this point. I do know there was some hand-covering of the eyes involved.) “Just…don’t use a stamp next time.”
I felt miffed. Hurt that my little surprise had fallen so flat. But I hadn’t quite grasped that whole thing of being cost effective yet.
Now I just send my mother an email. But it’s…just not the same.
So it wasn’t cost effective to mail something from my doorstep back to my doorstep, given all the man power that went into completing the loop. Just as it isn’t cost effective to have “real” people taking my information. But, apparently, there’s a similar amount / kind / style of frustration involved.
But it’s just not the same as talking to a live person who can understand e-nun-cee-ay-shon.
So I’ve moved forward…sort of.
I know technology’s good and fun and fabulous in its own right. It just seems, however, in some cases at least, it’s like mailing yourself back to yourself; there’s got to be an easier way…and one that’s perhaps even more cost effective.
– Heatheroramadamakadakka Seliodamawaggacoochoo (at least according to my energetic computer companion.)
