Gripe : Phone Maze Has a Hollow Ring

Last week, I dialed my voice mail message center to see if anybody had tried to reach me while I was away from the house. A recording informed me that the phone company’s voice mail system was temporarily out of order and messages were not being transmitted. I called the telephone company’s repair office to find out what the problem was.

“Welcome to the repair center,” a very pleasant female voice greeted me.

“Hello. I am wondering if you can tell me--”

She cut me off: “If you need help using your system, please press one.”

I felt foolish. Just imagine: I had actually taken her for a real person.

“If you would like to make a change in your service or report upcoming travel, please press two. If you would like to order a new service, please press three,” the voice, sounding less pleasant now, droned on.

I had no choice but to wade through the options, hoping to hear one that would come close to what I needed. After the fifth or sixth choice, the voice promised that if I stayed on the line, I would be connected with a human being.

Soon, to my great relief, I heard clicking sounds and a phone began to ring. It rang about 20 times. Finally, another recorded voice informed me that all representatives were “temporarily busy.”

If I stayed on the line, the voice promised, someone would be with me shortly. After what seemed like an eternity, the phone rang again. This time, the ringing ended abruptly, replaced by a busy signal. I had run into a brick wall. I was forced to hang up and start over at the beginning of the automated digital maze.

After 15 minutes, a male voice answered. It seemed human, but I wasn’t sure. “Are you a real person or a recording?”

He thought about it for a moment.

That was just one of many similar telephone experiences I have had since returning to the United States after five years abroad. What has happened here? Why is it so hard for one human being to talk to another about relatively straightforward business matters?

In Paris, where I lived for three years, I often lost my way in the telephone labyrinths of numerous bureaucracies. But every step of the way, I found warm-bodied, breathing humans on the other end of the line. They most often breathed fire, but at least they were real. I had a chance to explain what I needed.

It seems to me that this trend toward automation is symptomatic of a more generalized depersonalization of our society. We have all become numbers rather than personalities. To the Pacific Bell operator who finally answered me, I was caller No. 5 or 10 or 100. To universities, hospitals and insurance companies, I am a Social Security number. To credit card companies, I am their account number.

As demand for information, goods and services spirals, an efficient way must evolve to ensure that things run smoothly. That requires a degree of standardization, which, in turn, increases anonymity. But at what cost to our souls? Could we be experiencing some cruel corollary of supply and demand theory--that an oversupply of human beings has led to a sharp reduction in the value of each individual?