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The Wonders of Modern Technology
I put in my fortnightly woollies order yesterday and received the normal reply.
Then I waited for the confirmation of the order being picked and payed for.
However what I got next was a notification of my money being 'refunded." Without any explanation of why.
Then I got another message saying that my order was 'Cancelled." Saying that "They" had received "My" order cancellation!
I hadn't sent any messages to cancel my order.
So I got on the phone to ask WTF!
Almost immediately I got a very good idea of what happened, when the automated annoying voice began repeating the message "Sorry for the inconvenience, but our network is... please wait."
Without, of course, the addition that anyone with an IQ higher than a chimpanzees would recognise 90% of callers were seeking, i.e. "if you were waiting for an order that has been cancelled, we recommend that you do the following..."
Instead I had to listen to the same useless messages over and over, till the steam comming from my ears threatened to turn my office into a sauna.
Then, my ears were assaulted by such a bright cheerful enthusiastic voice that the confirmation that I was talking to an Artificiality Stupid (AS) Robot was totally redundant.
A supreme example of AS it clearly was, being hearing challenged as well as irony impaired.
Fortunately it had just enough functionality to recognise my phone number, so I didn't have to go through the whole 20 questions to get to square one.
However it took me several attempts before I managed to identify the glacial speed and elevated tone of speech required for it to understand more than one word.
As soon as it did recognised that I was calling about a cancelled order, I was interrupted in cheerful tones with a "Your order was cancelled and you will get a refund." message.
Which was exactly what I had just told it.
Square two.
It took several more attempts to get the robot to understand that I was looking for information about the nature of the solution to my need for the stuff I ordered.
At which point it announced that it would have to connect me with one of it's human 'friends'.
Then asked me to confirm my postcode and date of birth.
On telling it my year of birth, it brightly announced that it's creator's Father was born in the same year.
Thus shattering my assumption that the programmer had probably never met their father.
Another session with the repetitive annoying voice, seemed significantly less annoying after my experience of the AS.
Then it took me less than a minute to get confirmation that the order had to be placed again, but the network for this was functional and next day free delivery was available with him sending out a voucher immediately.
All of which should have been included in the very first email notification of refund of my money.
Which it probably would have been, if the cancellation process wasn't fully automated.
no doubt 'for the convenience of the customers'.
Another triumph for modern technology.
[At this point I must confess that I spent years as a Software Systems Test Manager. So I am partially responsible for some of that modern technology.
But in my defence I was asked to change my role to a less hands-on role with the people writing the software. Because those people were beginning to realise that what I really wanted to get hands-on with was their necks.]
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