These automated call directors have gone way too far, IMO.  Today, we gave up trying to get new phone service over the phone, and used the internet instead.  Verizon has installed this sweet-voiced computer to direct your call in so many directions that you eventually give up.  I wonder if they’re really saving money on payroll to justify this.  First, you get to press a number to decide if you want your menus in English or Spanish or TDD.  That’s straightforward enough.  Then you get a bunch of menus asking you to say what your question is.  Then the computer says it doesn’t understand you and tells you the acceptable things to say.  (If it understands only those things, why not do this first?)  Among them were tons of options for getting new features, and then finally one for customer service.  Bingo!  (I think – I was wrong. . .)  Customer service again asks me to describe my problem. . .and again tells me it doesn’t understand and gives me a list of acceptable responses.  Do I want to. . .pay my bill online?  Pay my bill by credit card?  Find out the balance of my bill?  Sign up for a different kind of billing service?  Give them more money for no apparent reason?  Ask for a duplicate copy of my bill?  On and on and on it goes, and not one of the “Customer Service” options actually has anything to do with customer service.  At this point, I’ve wasted almost 15 minutes, and I’m no closer to getting new phone service than if I’d scrubbed toilets or poked myself in the eye with a stick.  And the toilet or eye-poking things would have been more fun, too. 

It reminded me, painfully, of the last time I called PSE&G – I don’t remember why I called, only that I went through multiple call directing prompts, and entered in my account number FOUR TIMES during the process.  When I finally managed to get through to a person, the first thing he asked was “May I have your account number, please?” 

Given the choice, I’ll drop any company that give me a telephone runaround in favor of one that actually staffs the phone line with humans, but in some cases, you have no choice.  And if it’s difficult for those of us who’ve been keeping up with technology, imagine how impossible it must be for the 12:00 flashers out there. 

This must be stopped, you marketing megalomaniacs!  You must repent your evil ways, or there’s going to be a new circle in hell for you – and it’ll have a call director system you’ll never be able to get through!

So last night, I’m chatting with daughter #1 in the car on the way home from music lessons.  There had been an ironic moment when the radio had played an old Blondie hit, followed immediately by Bowling For Soup’s “1985” that led us to talking about music.  We ended up talking about her middle school canteen last Friday, and about how most of the kids left when Green Day was being played, but the cafeteria was filled with dancing during the hip-hop tracks, most of the kids singing along as well.

Now, my musical tastes are fairly eclectic, and I do own some rap and some hip-hop cds, but I have to say that if an artist’s lyrics are offensive, I just don’t like it.  The stuff these kids are singing along with and dancing to has horrible lyrics.  Say what you will about it being a reflection of the society the artists grew up in, there’s no excuse, in my mind, for glorifying this stuff.  I recall being on a bus, chaperoning a field trip, and listening to the girls singing along with 50 cent’s “Candy Shop”.  I was appalled, and told the girls so.  “Don’t you know what this is about?  Don’t you have enough pride in yourselves to find this offensive?” They just laughed, and said they thought it was a fun song.  Between the lyrics and the videos, you’d think that women were put on earth for no reason but to gratify men physically.  It’s never been all that good, but this style of objectifying women puts us back to caveman days.  Add in the themes of taking offense, taking revenge, carrying and using firearms. . .it all seems to promote values that go directly against peaceful co-existence.

I don’t believe in censorship, but I also feel that adults are doing children a disservice by not telling them why they should be angry.  When I listen to music with mine, we talk about the lyrics, the artist, the cultural context of some of the older songs – not to the point where we don’t enjoy the music, but enough so they know what they’re listening to.  If fewer people just passively allowed themselves to be entertained, and actually paid attention to the vitriol spewing from the radio, we wouldn’t need censorship – people would get turned off, angry, and stop putting money into the pockets of people who are promoting these negative values.