Had to call the cable company this morning. Even though I’ve gotten pretty good at telling them exactly what to do, almost to the point where I might as well have designed and built their damn intranet software, I still find it very annoying going through their automated phone menus.

I remember when automated phone systems took over companies’ answering. It was simple. Press 1 for the menu, press 2 for sales, press 3 for a loud beep, etc. But, I don’t know, at least 10 years ago, they started adding in this voice recognition into their systems.

> Thanks for calling COMPANY. What can I help you with?

I’d rather just hear a menu and press a button or two. How am I supposed to know the available commands?

> You may say “Yes” or “No”, or you may say “Reconfigure my Service.”

Ok, I’ll “Reconfigure my Service.”

> I’m sorry, I didn’t get that. You may say “Yes” or “No”, or you may say “Reconfigure my Service.”

Ok, fine. “SERVICE”.

> I’m sorry, I didn’t get that.

Alright, enough already. It was much more usable when you guys simply provided me with a menu. I’ll just press zero until I hear the sound of a transfer.

The bottom line is that voice-recognition automated phone systems actually take me longer to navigate, and I’m in I.T. And it seems they don’t do the greatest job of filtering, because I’m gonna press zero a hundred times until I get anybody, in any department.

Think twice before setting up automated voice-recognition phone systems.