Dial A Human. What a concept. It stayed in my mind after trying to reach an employee at the Monterey Aquarium:
It went something like "Thank you for calling the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Para Espanol, a-lot-of-Spanish-words-‘uno’. If you want to talk to someone at the Aquarium and you know their name, press 2 to go to the directory and enter their extension." Hmmm, I knew the first name, and I knew the extension, so in English, I confidently pressed 2.
OK. Not. "Please press the person’s first letter of their first and last name. Q is 9 and Z is 12." Or something. Not knowing the last name, I hoped maybe it was intuitive, like my friend Google.
Now the voice prompt was closing in. "Your request delivered 3 possible responses." I was given 3 recordings, all of them incorrect. They did however, all contain the number 7, which was one of the four needed. Lottery tickets need what, five?
"Press ‘star’ for help. OK. "Thank you for calling the Monterey Aquarium. Para…"
The fastest thing to to was to call the operator, who only disconnected me once.
Now we have a special list of companies who have a human being answering the phone! Dial A Human. I hope it’s true anyway; do you think I have time to do it myself? …Have a great weekend Monterey!
