If you’re reading this, you have probably spent part of your life on the phone with a tech person of some sort, trying to figure out a problem and feeling like you’re getting nowhere. I know I’ve had to deal with everything from computer techs to phone / internet / cable / banking / power / fill-in-the-blank techs – and it is rarely pretty.
Recently, I overheard Mister on the phone (dealing with yet another tech problem) and I felt for the guy. He ran into the initial eye-rolling question that occurs each time we humans have to jump through tech hoops: Please enter your phone number. We all do it, no questions asked. And then – when we finally end up speaking to someone on the other side of the globe – we are asked again for our phone number.
It was at about that point when I overheard Mister’s side of the conversation. He politely stated that his phone number was the same number he’d already entered into the automated system. Pause. He then asked why he had to repeatedly give his number. Pause. He said something about how inefficient this company’s systems must be if all the information already given must be given again – each and every time he was passed on to a new human being in hopes of some sort of actual assistance.
Again, I felt for the guy. And when we talked about it later, he said he knows he isn’t going to change the world. He’s just hoping that by complaining about it enough – some day someone will actually hear him. And maybe, just maybe, systems will be improved.
Clearly I fell in love with a dreamer.