Artificial intelligence ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. More and more, I find that when I call business number, I get an automated voice that’s supposed to understand what I say almost as well as a real live human being.
But it can’t handle sarcasm. Or anger. And it can’t recognize humour. It certainly can’t crack a joke.
I find myself yearning for the good old days when people recorded their own messages for their answering machines.
These days, when I call someone, a generic male voice intones, “The number you have reached is not available.”
Huh? How can I have reached a number if it’s not available?
I call a different number, and the same voice gives me the same message. Is this guy sleeping around or something?
It would be nice to hear the voice of the person I’m calling. Even if it just said, “Hi, this is (Name). Leave me a message, and I’ll call you back.”
I have no confidence that the generic voice will even hear me, let alone call me back.
Over the years, I’ve collected a few imaginative answering messages. A few of these may have been gleaned from the Internet.
• Hi. We picked up this answering machine at a yard sale, in ‘as-is’ condition. We’re not sure if it’s working. If you leave a message and we don’t return it, the machine wasn’t working.
• This is John’s refrigerator speaking. Please speak slowly and clearly, so that I can write down your message and stick it onto my door for him to see later.
• To speak to Tim, press one. To speak to Linda, press two. If you’ve called a wrong number, press three,. None of these buttons actually work, but they make us feel like we have a big-time phone system and it lets you work out your anger on something inanimate.
• This is the Sixth Sense Detective Agency. You can leave a message if you want, but we already know who you are and where you live.
• Hi there! I’m home right now but I can’t find where I left the phone. Please leave a massage, and I’ll call you back if I find it.
• I’m sorry, I can’t talk to you right now because I have age-related memory loss. You could help me by leaving a message telling me my name and who I am.
• This is not Pizza Pizza or Rosie’s Hair Salon. And no one named Pam lives here. If you’re not trying to reach any of them, leave a message.
• I’m home, but I’m not answering the phone because I’m trying to avoid someone. If I don’t call you back, it’s you.
But I know where my all-time favourite message came from. Fellow editor Steve Roney, who likes being precise, recorded something like this message back in the 1980s: “I’m not here right now. Well, actually, I am here right now, but you’re not. And by the time you are here, I won’t be. So if you leave a message while you’re here, I’ll try to call you back when we can both be here at the same time.”
Although I think Steve might have made it even more complicated.
Jim Taylor lives in Lake Country: rewrite@shaw.ca