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Another Perspective
Our Menu Has Recently Changed
Good luck getting anyone to answer the phone at Consolidated Bolts and Screws.
Wally Windsocket of Moose Butt, Minnesota, a customer service representative with Consolidated Bolts and Screws, is the answer to a question on the latest edition of Corporate Trivial Pursuit. Wally has been reliably identified as the last person in corporate America to actually answer a telephone. He has already sent his telephone headset to the Smithsonian.
An amiable fellow, Wally committed this historic act on April 14, 2003 quite by accident. He had been mistakenly allowed into the corporate customer service bullpen before he had been trained in modern corporate service techniques and rashly answered a phone because he didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to.
By now, our Wally knows by heart the automated message that awaits all callers to Consolidated Bolts, and wouldn’t dream of just picking up a ringing phone. This cuddly message, slightly edited to make it more honest, goes in this wise:
“Thank you for calling Consolidated Bolts and Screws, sucker. Kick back, put your feet up and relax, because we’re going to jerk you around for as long as you’ll hold still for it. If you wish to be fobbed off in a language other than English, press two. We do this because we’re really important and busy folks here at Consolidated Bolts and don’t have time to screw around with peasants like you and your petty concerns. By the way, you could always go to our website to attempt to conduct your business there. But you should know that our site will make the obstacle course you had to deal with in basic training seem like a walk on the beach by comparison, and no one has ever successfully transacted any business on it.
“Please listen carefully, as our menu has changed. Ha! Of course it has. You didn’t think we’d leave it the same for a week running so that some damn fool could crack the code, did you? After you listen to about a dozen commercials for products you don’t want, we’ll give you our working hours and addresses, which you already know.
“Those of you who haven’t flaked out or fallen asleep by this point, may listen to an interminable list of numbers to press to deal with a list of situations that are scientifically engineered to not be remotely related to what you called in for.”
The recording doesn’t tell you, but callers with the toughness, the focus, and the extravagant amount of time on their hands to make it as far as the end of the options, will be, at last, rewarded by being put immediately through to another number, where the message will be, “Thank you for calling Consolidated Bolts and Screws, sucker….”
Nitpickers may accuse me of exaggerating, and perhaps I am just a bit. But I’m scratchy on this subject now as I’ve just returned from a trip to my bank that was unnecessary because my business could have easily been transacted over the phone. But what it took me about 20 minutes of phone time to understand was that the complicated bit was reaching my branch on the phone, not my business itself. It became clear that I was about as likely to break through the bank’s paralyzing phone tree — which should be ripped out root and branch — as Brer Rabbit was in getting a response from the Tar-Baby. (I don’t mention my bank’s name here, as it is no guiltier than just about every company in America above mom and pop size. And don’t even get me started on government agencies.)
The customer guy at my branch, a truly helpful, competent, and polite fellow it should be noted, told me that one of the options in the tree was “to talk to a branch (no pun intended) representative.” But I had been so anesthetized by the endless commercials and useless information about hours, locations, etc. (I know, I know this message may be recorded! Get on with it!) that I missed it. And soon after concluded that a two-mile drive to the branch office would involve far less time and heartache than playing phone-tree lotto, a mug’s game with about as much chance of striking it rich (getting through to an actual human being who could help) as winning the real state lotto (which in Florida is about the same as the chance of being struck by lightning while being bitten by a shark).
When I’ve grumped over the years about this obvious symptom of moral and cultural decay, as well as corporate tone-deafness, my business-major friends always try to teach me why this sorry business is not only necessary but is in fact an advancement in civilization. I’m as impenetrable to these explanations as my bank’s phone tree. My cyber/techno/business friends tell me these systems have been designed by competent and sophisticated teams of MBAs, computer geeks, highly trained industrial psychologists, marketing majors, corporate attorneys, sensitivity trainers, and consultants from out of town with really good Power Point presentations. So the results must be good.
Who am I, a Luddite by comparison to the worthies listed above, to question the new and improved way for customers to communicate with the companies that supply us with the goods and services we need and/or just want? But in my simple, non-techno approach to things, I can’t help but escape the conclusion that American corporations, faced with the question of how to communicate with their customers, could have saved a ton of money and come to a much more customer-friendly arrangement had they had just asked Wally.
Here’s a piece of free business advice I’m convinced will be worth far more than what the people who take it have to pay for it. Any American company wishing to be miles ahead of its competitors in customer service, and resultant customer satisfaction, could gain this advantage by the simple expedient of ANSWERING THE DAMN PHONE !!
About the Author
Larry Thornberry is a writer in Tampa.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (41) | Leave a comment
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Appleby| 2.24.11 @ 7:12AM
In many cases you can still get a human by dialing 0; unfortunately the person who answers will not speak English, or have any idea what to do about what you called in to ask. (At my cable company they have two solutions: (1) reboot; (2) schedule a service call for a date and time when I and everybody in Canada who still has a job will be at the office.) But its no better in the USA; when I was in need of the immigration departments expertise I had to call my congressman, who kicked major butt and got me an evening call at home. He informed me that the Immigration Department claimed they had so much work that they had stopped answering phone calls completely! Perhaps that is what led to the Phone Tree. Hmm.
PaulyD| 2.24.11 @ 4:34PM
Interesting how you can get hold of a live person right away when you are ordering from a catalog...
Jack Olson| 2.24.11 @ 8:59AM
It only adds to the arrogance of the phone message when they tell you, "Your call is very important to us." If my call is important to you, why don't you answer your damn phone?
Another way of putting customers in their place is to require them to enter a string of account numbers followed by a personal identification number. Don't have a PIN number? Go on our website and we'll send you one in a day or so. Then you can call us back and do more keypad data entry because we're so cheap we require the customers to be their own telephone operators.
The woman in charge of my company's telephone operators proudly announced that most of the calls the company received were being answered within twenty seconds. I pointed out to her that under our phone system, the phone doesn't ring until the caller has entered a rep number, a PIN, and a twelve-digit account number. All this usually took 60 seconds or more, so calls were really being answered in a minute and a half from the callers' point of view. She didn't have any idea what I was talking about. The way she saw it, our phone answering was very prompt and convenient.
Appleby| 2.24.11 @ 11:01AM
My cable company requires that you input all this plus your telephone number -- and then the non-English-speaking employee who eventually answers asks you for THE EXACT SAME INFORMATION YOU JUST TYPED IN. I suppose this is in case you handed the phone to a homeless person to save your place in the queue while you went grocery shopping.
Paul Kotik| 2.24.11 @ 9:01AM
I did it. I was VP/Customer Relations for a small, struggling long-distance carrier back in the 1990's. I demanded that calls to our Customer Service department be answered by a Customer Service representative, not an IVR. It worked beautifully. Reps found themselves interacting with grateful, upbeat customers and business got taken care of quickly, efficiently and congenially. Then I hired a call center manager, an experienced one, and my fellow big wheels fell for his seductive pitch for automated call answering and distribution. Dumb asses. Here's why: there may be short-term efficiencies, but all of these are hugely offset by the small number of callers who get so pissed by the automated system they abandon their calls and instead complain to state and Federal regulators. Each of those complaints is very expensive to respond to. A surprisingly small number of such complaints reaching the FCC can result in very, very costly dialogue with that monster. A losing proposition.
My policy is simple: I don't press or say nuthin' for nuthin'. If I can't get to a human being without dealing with a machine, I don't do business with that company. Why should I? If the company offers to pay me for working as a switchboard operator, I suppose I'd consider cooperating, but they don't.
This is the one and only case in which I favor a Federal takeover of private commercial activity. I'd like the Feds to demand that any business employing more than two people must ANSWER THE DAMNED PHONE within, say, 20 seconds of any recorded baloney being played, with no buttons pressed and no spoken responses required.
Why? I think it's a public good. I'll be the amount of productive time lost to interminable duels with automated phone systems vastly exceeds the largely ephemeral cost savings realized by those gizmos. The Health Care Czar ought to take an interest, too. I know my blood pressure rises significantly when I hear those recordings begin. I''ll bet lots of folks snack while wading through the phone tree, thus contributing to the national emergency of obesity.
Maybe this should be the American Tahrir Square. Join me. Do not cooperate with Interactive Voice Response systems. Do not press nuthin', for nuthin'. Patronize businesses that ANSWER THE DAMN PHONE.
The worst offenders? In my opinion, it's the major....phone companies. AT&T, Verizon... it's like calling the Tajikistan Ministry of Telegraphy.
But then, they sell minutes, don't they? It's what they would do.
PaulyD| 2.24.11 @ 4:40PM
When I ran my own franchise, the franchise headquarters told me never to use an answering machine. Always answer the phone live.
They pointed out the advantage our franchise had over the competition is that competitors frequently used answering machines and that customers rarely ever left a message when they were looking for our type of service. The normal customer response to an answering machine at a service business is to hang up.
Answering the phone worked like a charm. Our franchise always outsold the competitors.
Joe| 2.24.11 @ 9:03AM
What is worse is going to a business and finding they have eliminated greeters and receptionists. They have a phone on the wall with a sign to call the extension of the person you want to see. You stand in their little lobby and enter the phone tree purgatory while just on the other side of the wall separating you from someone to which to talk. This has become the norm with non-public access businesses that service business to business customers. If one has to go to one from time to time to service equipment or work with a representative first-hand, it is a double sort of torture.
Handy| 2.24.11 @ 9:19AM
Hilarious, but oh so true.
I have been working with a computer company to get some recovery disks (which should have been in the original packaging, but weren't) for a computer for about six weeks now. It's maddening.
The decline in service is amazing in this ever evolving "service economy." It's everywhere, and not just limited to telephones. For example, I don't go to fast food restaurants very often, but in the past two years, about 50% of my orders have been wrongly filled. Supermarkets are even worse. None of the clerks on day duty are familiar with the inventory. There must be phantom crews that actually stock the shelves. Perhaps we should start shopping after dark. How about those oil and tire checks at gas stations? A windshield wipe? Fuggetaboutit. (Of course, many of you are too young to remember such things.) But, is it too much to ask that the clerk get your pump number right?
I will be amused to hear other "Service Stories From Hell." There must be eight million of them. Consolidated B & S has just been one.
Ken (Old Texican)| 2.24.11 @ 9:22AM
Greatest sales pitch in the world. My salesmen would simply hand a prospective customer a card with the customer service rep's number on it.
The prospect was asked to call the number in the sales presentation and see what kind of response he got. Boy we swiped a lot of customers (grin)
Paul Kotik| 2.24.11 @ 9:28AM
Ken ! I like it. It could work for me. May I?
Ken (Old Texican)| 2.24.11 @ 10:46AM
Paul,
Go for it, guy. It is absolutely amazing what happens when you get the "front end" guys working hand in hand with the "back end" guys....working with the prospects and customers.
You know, one of my most brilliant sales reps. once said: "All I need is a name...and a good reason to go see him/her."
Delivering the customer service guy's card is the most effective strategy we employed.
NO ONE can swipe our customers. (grin)
Eric Cartmam| 2.24.11 @ 9:31AM
Well, it can't be any harder than trying to leave a post at AmSpec blog. Just try and you get the "Not a valid email address"even though its the same one you used for years. Good going, guys.
CS Agent Torme (S. Bangalore)| 2.24.11 @ 10:01AM
Thank you for your comment, Mr/Mrs/Ms Cartman. Here at Amspec Customer Service (an India-based LLC), your comment is veddy important to us.
Please state the nature of your problem with the commenting system. We will have a bright "comment engineer" get in touch with you before midnight (Bombay time) to help both correct your problem and sell you some $150 Microsoft (an India-H1Visa-based LLC) to help clean up your computer, as it's all your damn computer's fault to begin with - at least that's our stoddy and ve are sticky to it.
Eric Cartman| 2.24.11 @ 10:17AM
Is this Jeff, my CS guy for HP, Microsoft, Frigidaire, ATT call center for Uverse, Visa Bankcard, and HBSC, Master Card??? Good to hear from you , Jeff. Hope your 18 kids and 4 goats are doing fine.
CS Agent Torme (Mindanao)| 2.24.11 @ 1:43PM
Good day to you, Mr./Mrs./Ms. Cartman, and good to hear from you again. I was indeed the one who helped you with your bank cards, your stand-alone freezer, and your junky HP laptop.
In answer to your qverry, I have been transferred recently to Mindinao Island, here in the Phillipines. It was kind of a sudden cost-saving re-organization, and we have set up in the Phillipines since my previous comment on this wonderful web site (that we support). So, my kids (the human ones) are doing OK, tank-you-veddy-much, but we had to leave all of the goats back in old Bombay. They will be sorely missed, especially by my one son approaching puberty.
Good day, and thank you for your request. Let us know if we may be of further service.
Eric Cartman| 2.24.11 @ 1:58PM
Well, I do have this noise coming from my junky HP laptop . . .a whirrrr, zip, zunka,zunka, PHHHHT! Then screen goes black. Anything?
Mark Shepler| 2.24.11 @ 9:59AM
I am in the Life & Health insurance biz for 25 years. Dealing with a large insurer from the inside is no less frustrating for me than it is for a customer pondering the beast from the outside. Each company is a huge bureaucracy with a division, dept. and sub-desk for everything under the sun. They are the closest thing to dealing with a government except, unlike a government, to them I am the customer and so respond as if business depended on it. Because it does. The only advantage I have over you is that through repetition I learn who deals with what and can thus anticipate the snafus and avoid many of them. If something goes amiss that same repetitive experience informs me who I must begin with to run down and solve the problem and so I learn first how to steer clear of problems and second, how to clear them up efficiently. But first, like you, I must navigate the dreaded phone tree.
The phone trees have added a whole new dimension to the universe of frustration in my biz. I despise them. They only get worse over time. The latest iterations now require we enter identifying info about an account before we can get past the tree even though the ultimate destination is ALWAYS to speak to someone, even though they ALWAYS ask for the info. again, for almost no problem I wish to solve can be done in an automated way. Explanations and details MUST be given to sort out a problem and this requires speaking to a human being. This needless, pointless ritual drives me bonkers daily.
But I have found a workaround. It is this: YELL "REPRESENTATIVE" or "ASSOCIATE" really, really loud and angrily into the phone. My reason is thus, the trees respond to voice commands and I believe through the marvels of modern voice recognition software they can probably detect stress levels by now. It seems to work faster although that could just be a placebo effect akin to pushing the dummy "close door" button on many elevators. At any rate, I certainly feel better and that is for real.
Ken (Old Texican)| 2.24.11 @ 10:56AM
Mark,
you should have joined New York Life. Beginnng my career there, I explained to a prospect that we had no "stock-holders" to satisfy...but only "policy owners" .
He tested me.
After buying a policy, he was on a business trip to NYC and wandered into our headquarters building carrying his policy in his hand.
He was immediately given a tour of the whole darned building, and then invited to sit in on the executive staff meeting in the afternoon.
He was asked questions, and he asked questions.
Heh,
He now has a zillion dollars worth of NYLIC insurance...exclusively. So do all of his friends and family.
Mark Shepler| 2.24.11 @ 11:38AM
I shoulda, coulda and, looking back, woulda done a lotta things differently in my life if I only knew then what I know now. Wouldn't you? :)
But seriously, I came up in an old school Ordinary agency with old school guys who taught the old virtues. Never disparage the competitors for they are honorable. And meant it. NY Life always impressed me as a first class outfit. Most of the old timers in our biz would give the shirts of their backs to their customers or anyone they were in a position to help.
Ken (Old Texican)| 2.24.11 @ 12:47PM
Oh Mark,
I was just very lucky.....not smart. (smile)
My second year I went to the MDRT...a sea of NY blue.
My whole training program was around being a "service rep"....and counselor.
The thing is..... last week I called my agent, and he immediately conferenced me in with the corporate specialists in NY. (I have a pretty complex insurance portfolio.)
The thing is, "the customer is important" training has served me well over 40 years since.
Sheila| 2.24.11 @ 11:06AM
Actually, Mark, while it makes you (and me) feel better to yell, it DOES work. I press zero first, and if that is "not a valid option" then I firmly say "Representative" or "Live Advisor" loudly and repeatedly. This tends to freeze-up the phone tree and you frequently get shifted over to a live person. Of course, if I get an Indian, I immediately hang up. One way I frequently get around this entire thing (other than not giving my business to companies that don't have live American reps to assist me) is by going on the web, finding the corporate headquarters phone number (i.e. not the toll-free one, but the regular long-distance one), and demanding to speak to the head of consumer affairs. I use no profanity, but an icily angry tone, and usually get through to someone high enough up (and a native-American English speaker to boot) to solve my problem promptly.
Mark Shepler| 2.24.11 @ 11:55AM
I believe yelling does work. Shortly after posting this screed I had to call UPS because they mistakenly shut my account down. Half-way through the tree I'd had enough and did my thing. Sure enough it cut right to "please hold for an associate". I do think the better systems detect stress and shunt the infuriated customer to live help.
MikeBee| 2.24.11 @ 10:06AM
O.K., I'll add my favorite phone system hate complaint. I'm living in the United States of America, and when I call a U.S. company, I'm told that if I'd like English, press "One." English should be the default here. If a caller wants any other language from a U.S. company, HE should have to press something, not me.
YeloStalyn| 2.24.11 @ 10:11AM
A financial insitution began to call my home about 2 years ago about some account issue. The problem was, though, that I had never transacted with them. They would leave a message on my machine (they called when any good person should be at work... and my wife and I were). My wife called them back to let them know they had the wrong number (and, selfishly, so they would not keep calling). So, on the phone (and, to their limited credit... it was a real person... funny... when they call looking for payment they used a real person) they started the conversation by asking my wife for our account number. Reasonable enough, I suppose. But then my wife informed them that we did not have an account with them. "That's OK, I can look it up... what's the last four of your SS?"
Um... we don't have an account with you.
"Well, ma'am, without your account number I can't help you."
I don't want you to help. I'm not your customer. I just want you to stop calling me. You have the wrong number.
"Yes, but, ma'am... without your account number I can't update your phone number."
If you don't have my account number, how did you look up this phone number?
"Ma'am... please... I'm trying to help but you have to give me your account number."
True story... and the really sad part... we had to have this conversation with them a number of times before we sent them a nasty-gram via email and then, finally, got a response. They have since stopped calling... THANKFULLY.
And... may I suggest... that EVERY time you manage to get a real person on the back end of the phone tree your FIRST remark should be, "I know it's not your fault, so I don't blame you, but please... tell your boss as soon as we're done here... to get rid of that damned phone service and get a real person on the front end." I do ever time and the funny thing is usually the customer service rep. usually agrees with me and is sorry that he always has to deal with customers who have been put in a sour mood even if they started their call just fine and dandy.
Appleby| 2.24.11 @ 11:07AM
I got this stutter-step response when Bell Mobility started sending me someone else's mobile phone bill by email. My mobile phone is with a totally different company, but the phone tree insists that you give them an account number in order to progress. An email to their "customer care" address got a response in gibberish. I finally just punched something at random and got a human being to whom I explained my problem -- and SHE transferred me to a human in the correct department. Turned out the "customer" was a scam artist, as the human said, "You are the second call we have had on [this person] tonight; the other one was complaining that the paper bill did not belong to them." Then she laughed rather uneasily and asked if I wanted to pay the bill which was over $200. I am waiting to see if I get another ebill from them. I suspect I will.
Citizen Jerry| 2.24.11 @ 10:22AM
Someone may answer the phone, alright. But it will probably be someone in Mumbai -- who sounds like he's speaking English, but you can't be sure.
As for John Wayne, I can't see him asking why in the $*&@! he should have to press "1" for English.
Ed| 2.24.11 @ 10:25AM
There are many on the Right who think that private enterprise is much more efficient than government. Maybe so, but the reality is that we are being screwed by governments and large businesses. Social Security is going broke, but does anyone really trust their 401K's and Wall Street investments anymore?
We have gotten to the point where the only people you can really count on are your family, your immediate circle of friends, your congregation (if you belong to one), and a select few small businesses that you personally know and trust.
Folks, this is what life in a third-world country is like.
Mark Shepler| 2.24.11 @ 11:31AM
I absolutely, positively believe private enterprise is more efficient than gov't. Every time. Even a trillion dollar outfit like Prudential knows I can as easily sell a competitor's products as their's and much depends on the kind of response and service I get. But, that is not to say they are absolutely, unfailingly efficient. They are not. Again, take Pru, I get better service now as an independent broker than I did when I was a "captive" agent, meaning one of their own agency hires and essentially a manufactuer's rep who is contractually wedded first to their product set.
Therein lies the clue. They have to compete for the broker's biz, the in-house guys must do biz with them first unless obtaining special case by case permission which is another way of saying just about always. And so in the competitive broker world they act accordingly, in the agency, company-man world, they act like....government. In my world they are one of hundreds of outfits vying for business, to their own crew the only game in town. A monopoly. That is the essence of gov't "services"- monopoly and they too act accordingly. Witness Wisconsin. Do you think they'd be carrying on like that absent the sense of entitlement a monopoly breeds in its beneficiaries?
But, I don't think telephone trees are diabolical plots by hulking, inhumane corporations to wring profits out of the little guy's psyche. No, I think its a nefarious scheme by the overly-educated smart guys and gals Mr. Thornberry describes who are enamored with technology and their own theories of efficiency and economy. Twenty years ago there was talk in the life ins. industry of doing away with agents, even a laughable proposition that vending machines would replace us and many ideas were hatched and died to that end. It turned out they had to relearn what the industry has known for over 200 years, that it is sold not bought and for that dynamic to work a customer must deal with...a human being.
Time will tell if they learn the lesson anew as regards telephone trees.
Petronius| 2.24.11 @ 10:50AM
Customer service is as major league of an oxymoron as political integrity and objective journalism.
Recordings and menus do not get paid by the hour, call in sick, take coffee breaks, or have to pick up the kids at 3:30. 2 Businesses you bought that lemon whatever from have made their money from your sale and don't need you making trouble by calling them with your problems with that malfunctioning doohickie controlling the auxillary feature which mutes their commercials on your set. That costs money. Consumer level manufacturing is in such a pathetic state because of contempt for the customer and litigation over product safety. The worst part of this situation is the nature of it. Nobody makes money making anything. They make money selling things. Manufacturing at consumer level is all outsourced. And so is customer service. After slogging through menu after menu and getting the flunkie on the line who is in Katmandu, assume he doesn't work for the company that sold you the thing that doesn't work either, nor does he know squat about it. "Please press 1 for English and your call will be answered in the order in which it was received. You may now finish your novel and our representative will be with you shortly."
Appleby| 2.24.11 @ 11:10AM
To the ones that say "our representative will be with you momentarily" I always begin the conversation with the rep by informing him/her/it/them that "momentarily means FOR a moment, not IN a moment." Confuses the hades out of them.
Ken (Old Texican)| 2.24.11 @ 12:50PM
Appleby, thanks
You never fail to give me a chuckle.
Purple Lips| 2.24.11 @ 2:34PM
The problem with large multi-national Fortune 1000 firms is that the people who manage them go to the same schools as they who run, say the HHS, DOD, or Homeland Security. Once you are that big, you worry about things like Paradigm Shifts, Synergies, and Cost Effective ROI index ratios. These firms tend to be top heavy in MBAs and management and finance gurus. They deal in abstractions, powerpoint presentations, and tend to be more attune to Beltway politics than say a medium sized firm owned by a family.
Once a corporation reaches a certain size, not only is it susceptible to Beltway pressures, but treats customers like they treat PE ratios. More than one enterprise got itself into trouble by either outsourcing customer service to India, or by constructing complicated call center phone menu matrices (probably designed by an MBA with a specialization in decision making and Boolean Logic). It only takes a few quarters of loses before the CEO is front and center before the board of directors. Most usually learn, many like AT&T do not.
cyberdog| 2.24.11 @ 2:47PM
It is just as bad INSIDE corporate America. As an employee today, just try and get in touch with Human Resources, Pay roll or God forbid, the "IT" Department. First you will get the mind numbing support message and then you will get tossed around to several incompetent know nothings until you get passed into someone’s voice mail. Several days later if you are lucky and you have a rabbit’s foot in your pocket you just might get a return call. But there is no guarantee that anything will be resolved because afterall, you are the problem!
CalMark| 2.24.11 @ 3:57PM
YES!
All this stimulus money and trillions in deficits, hundreds of thousands of new government employees...but it's harder than ever to get a human being to answer the phone.
The Tyranny of Technology Abuse!
mjfin| 2.24.11 @ 5:03PM
Hope is on the way.
Anybody watch Jeopardy! when the IBM Watson machine competitor won? In five years, he will be answering all the phones. And he is smarter than people at answering complicated questions.
We will all soon bow to our computer overlords.
Dave | 2.24.11 @ 7:27PM
Well, kids ... if you think the customer's plight in this attached article is a mess (and it is) just wait until you have try and get a doctor's appointment through a fully implemented OBAMACARE system of checks, counter-checks and tutorial phone mandates. It's only a guess, but I suspect that if you're really sick, pushin' that old age envelope toward 70ish and find yourself stuck in Barry's federal healthcare phone maze - the hidden plan is that you'll end up stuck on "the other end" so long that you'll drop over stone dead from too much indoctrination, lack of circulation or personal attention. I realize that sounds kind of cold, but it's either that or (a) pass you off to someone in their Federalized End Of Life Counseling Department (b) refer you an actual automated End Of Life Councilor or (c) ask you to HOLD for the next available "do-it-yourself" End Your Life instructructional recording to sit through. The planning for "old foofs" will be that they finally keel over from being on the phone so long that most end up saving the system all that unnecessary money that might have been spent saving them. I mean why spend federal cash on putting off the dirt nap when there'll be government unions to pay off?
But "how much could they actually save by not getting some poor old dude or dudettes a simple doctor'sappointment?"
Well, added together with the thousand of others who'll probably croak- over while on phone hold - I'd say quite a lot. Don't forget, by the time many of us reach the age for mandatory End of Life Counciling, there'll probably be another teacher's union strike in Wisconsin, maybe a bus driver slow down in Madison or a sanitation workers sick-out in Green Bay. Remember, grasshoppers, in the end, THEIR end is more important than ... YOURS. Especially if it's ... your LAST.
R.I.P. And sleep tight.
PCP Smoker| 2.24.11 @ 9:30PM
You are the one! You are the one calling the airlines and spending half an hour with the operator to inquire as to whether flight 123 came in on time. Unless you are Panamanian, learn to use the services available on line and, to quote Mark Levin, "get off the phone, you big dope"!
Bob Knutson| 2.25.11 @ 11:15AM
Being at the end of my eighth decade on this earth and having some serious mobility issues, I find the phone trees of most companies raising my frustration levels to unprecedented heights. And by the way, forget about trying to deal with any government agency.
Occam's Tool| 2.27.11 @ 3:49PM
I usually find the brutal efficiency one would use interrogating a captive in a Gulag goes a long way with these types.
sex toys | 7.4.11 @ 1:14AM
The fact that Trump has come out against the Korea-U.S. trade deal and this week's pulling of a vote on a trade deal in the House by the leadership shows there a very fluid House GOP caucus against the kind of trade deals which benefit only corporate interests and infringe upon U.S. sovereignty
Reebok | 8.11.11 @ 2:51AM
is good