At first it all went smoothly. One phone call to the gas company and, at the hint of a sale, an engineer was on our doorstep. He looked at our unreliable old boiler, confirmed it was no longer safe, took lots of measurements, advised us which of the new range of boilers would suit us best and left us – reassured and ready to buy – telling us to expect an estimate within a few days.
After more than a few days had gone by and anxious to have a new boiler installed before the cold weather set in, I rang to chase up the estimate. A mechanical voice said there would be an 11-minute wait till someone could speak to me, but if I left my name and number, they would call me back.
It was the first time I had used this ring-back facility and I won’t be using it again. Assuming they would call back when I reached the head of the queue and being, like most women, a multi-tasker, I was putting those eleven minutes to use. I was UPSTAIRS, shaking out the duvet, when the phone rang DOWNSTAIRS, only a few minutes later.
Hurtling down the stairs – inadvisable at my age, when the sense of balance is askew – I got there in time. Only to find I still wasn’t connected to a living person.
After having to listen to a lot of Muzak, interspersed with advice which I didn’t want or need, I was about to slam the receiver down when an actual person – a male person – came on the line, took all my details and told me he would now transfer me to another department. I said if this meant I would hear more music or be told one more time what to do if I find a pool of water at the bottom of my fridge, I would put the receiver down.
I did hear more music. I did put the receiver down.
We did not manage to get the quotation and place an order for something that we needed and were ready to buy, and which would have netted the gas company several hundred pounds.
And I dread more than ever the time, not far off when – as Yuval Noah Harari* so convincingly predicts – robots will have taken over the world of work and mechanical voices will be the only voices we hear.
* Lecture on The Future of Humanity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOmQqBX6Dn4&vl=en-GB