On the topic of: teleprompters

You know what teleprompters are, right? Those automated systems that you often get when you call *any corporation*? A prerecorded voice says something like, “thank you for calling blah blah blah, your call is very important to us, please select from the following 14 options…”

You get the idea. I have to make alot of phone calls at work, and so I get to interact with these lovely artifacts of the modern era quite often. Let’s look at some of Eric’s favorite facets of these things!

“Please listen closely, as our menu options have changed.” – Excuse me? Do you really think this is a necessary thing to say, every blippin single time I call you? You probably changed your menu options in 1992, and 14 years later you still have that message up? And what’s with the choice of the words listen closely? I listen closely if my doctor says “Eric, I have some bad news.” I listen closely if my wife just took a pregnancy test and she’s about to tell me the results. I do NOT listen closely if I’m trying to determine which menu option I want.

re: the voice of the person they select to ‘be’ the teleprompter – Sometimes, I call a company, and I’m about 96% sure that thats not actually a human speaking to me, its actually some composite of people that have the most agitating and grating voices in the world. It’s amazing. You’d think, since you generally have no choice but to listen to this voice, that they’d throw you a bone and make it a soothing or sexy voice. Not likely. When I call this one company in particular, as soon as last digit is dialed, I start spamming the “1″ key on the phone so I will only have to listen to the horrible voice for the shortest amount of time as possible. I sure hope their menu options don’t change, cause I sure don’t listen to them as it is.

quack quack – Ok, enough ranting. I’m not sure how I came across the number, but at one point I was given the phone number of this mortgage company, and told to call it and just listen. The teleprompter fired off four or five options to reach various departments of the corporation. At the end, it goes, “If you’d like to hear a duck quack, press 6.” Without any thought whatsoever, I immediately mashed the 6 key. Sure enough, I was serenaded with a duck quacking a few times. It’s a good life.

Ahh, feels good to get things off your chest, huh?

FL: How to get out of your wireless phone contract for free – Who knows if this actually works. Funny regardless.