Thursday, August 14, 2008

I Just Talked To A COMPUTER

It was a call from my baby sister's health plan thingummy. "Is this the child's parent or guardian?" I was silent... "I'm sorry," the computer said, "I'm just a computer. Did you say "yes?"

"No," I said firmly.
"Is there anyone available to take this call?"
"No," I said again, wishing there were.
"Would you be willing to take a message?"
Long silence. I didn't really want to, and this was a computer talking, so I could have said no if I wanted to. "Y-ees," I said rather uncertainly. And took the message.

But it was very weird.

Speaking of phone calls, we've been getting a lot of wrong number calls lately...

11 comments:

Q said...

No! Artificial intelligence!

Anonymous said...

:rofl That made me laugh! Talking to a computer. Wow and soil.

Wrong number calls are annoying. Once, before I was born, my parents kept getting calls from some person asking for someone with the same name as my mom--at like 2 in the morning.

Anonymous said...

Wow. I don't think I've ever talked to a computer like that. Well, maybe once, I guess ;)

Holly said...

Ew. I hate talking to machines. Had to call my airline's phone line a lot today and felt rather uncomfortable wandering around yelling "Flight ONE - NINE - SEVEN" and "ARRIVAL" into my phone. Plus it kept picking up background noise and saying in a confused apologetic voice, "I'm sorry, I still don't understand..."

Delaney said...

I almost feel sorry for the computers when they apologize. "I'm JUST a computer." How saaaad! :(

Alyosha said...

*snickers* Hmm...What an interesting experience. I wish the libraries' "You-have-three-items-overdue-pay-up-or-DIE!" computer-phones with their constant harassment and voices of tin would apologise once in a while.

(But it IS the library, so I guess I can forgive them.)

Rose Marchen said...

lol, Delaney! That is so funny! Alyosha... quite funny as well!

Speaking of computers... once we got a call, and I could tell it was a telemarketer of some sort... human or computer I couldn't tell. So I summoned up the courage and said "Are you a computer?" The lady on the other end paused as replied "No I am not." I was so embarrassed and immediately hung up. But now.... I wonder. Was it really a real person?

Delaney said...

Oh, Auntie! That must have been so embarassing!

Melissa Cecilia said...

Sis, the robots are out to get us! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!! lol.

I hate pre-recorded messages... and telemarketers not taking "No" for an answer. You're not alone in the wrong number thing either; our house number has been getting that quite a bit lately.

Delaney said...

Our number is very similar to some water company's number, so often we get calls saying, "Is this the water company?" I guess I just don't sound professional enough to work for a water company...

The other day a guy called, and it was... weird:

Me: Hello? (Yeah, not very polite, but it's too much of a mouthful to answer the phone with proper etiquette)
Man: (quietly) Um...hi....
Me: (I didn't know what to say so I decided to pretend I hadn't heard. Kind of stupid, yeah.) Hello?
Man: ....hi....
Me: Who is this? (I said this very politely)
Man: Um... I'm calling to get my number.
Me: (Totally confuzzled) Who are you calling for?
Man: Is this the lady from the newspaper?
Me: No, I'm sorry: I think you have the wrong number.
Man: Right...sorry.

Melissa Cecilia said...

Whoa, weird.

Yeah, our house number is ONE DIGIT off from a local school's so we're constantly getting "Is this *blank*?" And I say no... and then they call again and say the same thing. Dur. lol.

btw, I want to send you what I'm been working on lately, to get some feedback. Can I?