Sometimes, I feel my gag reflex going into hyper-drive.
And sometimes, I just need to get out of the way and let some folks speak for themselves.
So I’m gonna do just that tonight.
Here is GOP Presidential Candidate neurosurgeon Ben Carson, MD
And since I know you, and I KNOW you didn’t click on that video, I will have to step back up to the plate and tell you that the good doctor explained that we Democrats are all wrong.
It’s true, apparently.
Dr. Carson let all of us know that the GOP, well, they aren’t so bad. Women should like them, even.
So says the No. 2 (in some polls) Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson. It’s true. He said on Thursday that Democrats were wrong to allege Republicans were waging a “war on women.”
“They tell you that there’s a war on women,” he said. “There is no war on women.There may be a war on what’s inside of women, but there is no war on women in this country.”
This guy should be headlining in the Poconos. What an eff’in commedian.
It has been 5 years almost to the day since I started a blog. Given how ephemeral these electronic flashes of word and image can be, that makes me an elder statesman. Practically a blogging Methuselah.
My first post was about dropping my youngest daughter off at college. I hadn’t figured out how to upload pictures yet and it was rather wordy. My daughter, my sister-in-law and an anonymous stranger were the only humans to read my efforts.
A couple of months later, bolstered by the fact that I was now a genuine writer, courtesy of having this blog, I got up the courage to approach the local paper about doing a little ditty in one of their occasional magazines. They took the bait. I had to pay them in the form of advertising, but still – I was published!
Do you ever go back and look at your old posts? There are a few that stand out in my memory, but mostly I forget about them unless someone else says something that brings it all back. And then I have to go look.
Kate, from Views and Mews by Coffee Kat recently posted about her experience with customer service. It reminded me of this one, the second post here on FiftyFourAndAHalf. That was over four years ago, and the world of customer service, and the robots who “service” us has not improved.
* * *
Automated telephone answering systems are responsible for the 40% increase in psychotic events over the past 15 years.
That’s my theory, anyway. My hypothesis. I’m not sure how to prove it, but it is true. My secondary hypothesis is that all incidents of domestic terrorism are directly tied to automated telephone systems. The FBI should investigate.
Personally, I become psychotic each and every time I have to press 1 for this and 2 for that. I’ll cut them a break for language, though. I have no problem pressing 1 for English. People need to grumble in their native tongue. Spanish speakers should have that right too.
But in fact, nobody gets to bitch. We just press 1 or 2 respectively and listen to additional options, none of which are what we want. None of the prompts come even close to what really want. None of them says “Press 4 to scream at a human.”
I become progressively more apoplectic with each and every telephone prompt. Eventually, with perseverance, I finally get a person. And by the time I do, that person on their end of the telephone is thinking long and hard about their career choice.
It’s not their fault. I always tell them that. I know it is true. But that fact doesn’t alleviate any of my anger at the time I have spent just to get to them. And nine times out of ten, the human I have reached is the wrong human in the wrong department and usually in the wrong country. I must start again. My psychosis soars along with my blood pressure.
There is even one telephone prompt voice that makes my blood boil. I call her Sybil. Sybil is everywhere: at my cable company and my power company and a couple of the banks I briefly considered doing business with until I heard her speak. She is young, chatty. She pretends to be my friend. She is not my friend. I do not want to be friends with a telephone prompt. I do not want to talk to her. I do not want to do anything she asks of me. And I really do not want to press her buttons. She is pressing mine. Remotely.
On average, after approximately 5 different prompts I am invariably led to a dead end where I have the same four original choices, none of which remotely fulfilled my need at the start. Or, if somehow one of the choices would work, I am promptly disconnected. I must start again with Sybil.
I am pretty sure the cost savings in terms of personnel is not worth it for businesses. Often by the time I am done with a call about this or that, I am ready to destroy the building. And if all your customers feel that way—and they do–perhaps you should rethink your policy.
One minute with a person early on and my problem would have been solved, amicably, and I would be a satisfied customer. Instead, an hour later, I would give all that I own for a battalion of similarly psychotic customers who would help me storm company headquarters and pin down just one human for us to yell at in turn. But by the time my turn comes, of course, I will have forgotten why I want to yell at them. And then I’ll have to talk to Sybil again.
I know, I just posted this video. But you gotta admit, it fits. Besides, it’s my damn blog.
When I look at today’s GOP, I just don’t understand why they are so fired up at tearing down stuff that helps people.
I mean look at them. They want to gut programs that have helped millions:
Social Security (Happy 80th, BTW! Here’s to 100 and more!)
Medicare
Voting Rights
Immigration
.
Have you heard the latest? Donald Trump proclaimed that the 14th Amendment — the one that grants citizenship to anyone born in the United States — is unconstitutional.
That Furball, The Donald, wants to pretend that rights that are in the Constitution are, well, unconstitutional. And the rest of the clowns are falling all over themselves to agree with him!
Ummmmm, do they even have a clue that “Constitutional” means,well, in the fucking Constitution?
Apparently not. Because, you see, these folks just can’t get no … <i?they can’t get no. No no no…</i>
FiftyFourandAHalf 