I think the phone voices are out to get us all

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I spend a lot of time on the phone making travel arrangements and paying bills. During the past several years I have noticed that the procedures that go along with these tasks have shifted from the sublime to the ridiculous.

I used to call the bank to check on my balance and the voice mail would tell me what numbers to press right off the bat. Now I have to suffer through at least three minutes of advertising for new services before I can access what I need. They always start off with ‘‘Did you know that you can blah, blah, blah now any time you want?’’ or ‘‘You can get a loan for blah, blah, blah by just promising us your first-born.’’

The advertising mania is everywhere, but when it’s in your ear and you can’t get away from it, it’s maddening. If you want to upgrade the insanity, you just have to wait until you get a company that keeps repeating the information until one of its ‘‘agents’’ can get to you. Sometimes, they even tell you how many minutes you have to wait. That’s probably so people prepare themselves to meditate a few minutes so they don’t throw the phone against the wall.

And then there are companies that just play music. Some little ditty someone thought up; someone who likes to torture bugs or has a roaring case of obsessive-compulsive disorder. By the time you get off the phone, the song is so embedded in your brain that you want to stick a pipe in your ear.

Another system has an android that sounds like a real human until you realize it doesn’t understand English. I was trying to change a flight once, and every time I said Boston, it repeated back Bangkok. I finally tried to trick it and said I wanted to go to Bangkok, thinking it would say Boston. But no. This time it said Boulder. At least now I was in the States. But after 10 minutes I knew I had to hang up so that I didn’t start screaming in the airport and find myself in a maximum-security prison for the rest of my life.

If the advertising and repetition don’t get you, the information Nazis will. It seems that no matter whom you call, they want to know everything about you before they will access ‘‘your information.’’ I spent a good part of the morning the other day trying to pay a bill because I had to enter my Social Security number, my address, my phone number, my mother’s birthday, her Social Security number, my father’s uncle’s wedding date, my grandchildren’s names, the hospitals they were born in and the doctor who delivered them. After I finally got to the last question, the android cut in and said they were unable to find my records. At that point I decided to look into a cabin in Vermont with no electricity, no phone and a few homing pigeons.

Author, humorist, PBS star and For tune 500 trainer Loretta LaRoche lives in Plymouth. To share your pet peeves, questions or comments, write to The Humor Potential, 50 Court St., Ply mouth 02360, send e-mail to in This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , visit the Web site at www.stressed.com, or call toll-free 800-99-TADAH (82324).

Copyright 2006 The Patriot Ledger
Transmitted Monday, November 06, 2006

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Cyndy said:

I had to use the ladies room at the big mall in town and when I went in of course the new modern facilities have couches and flowers and little sitting and relaxing rooms. As I gazed around the room I got a shock of my life, every party there was on a cell phone unbelievable that they cannot go the john without talking one lady was asking about what groceries to pick up another talking about a family member and so on, what has happened to us that we cannot go to the bathroom without chatting now? I am sure that you can use this somewhere down the road.

March 31, 2007

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