Phugging Phone Menu Rant

I called a local business the other day and sat on the postmodern version of hold.

Waiting for the endless phone menu to end, or at least come to a number I could press to get a live human being, I started ranting to the robot voice on the phone:

"Just give me a person to talk to...
Why can't the number for a real human be first on the list (#2 in this excellent article) ...
I won't remember your entire www address...
why do you ... have... to...speak...so... slowly?
##@#@$$#%$##%$$#$"

I expect someone was listening to me and giggling. Phug them.

Seriously though, all I had to do was Google irritating menus when you phone a company and the first hit was the excellent article mentioned above - with an equally awesome URL https://www.mightycall.com/blog/10-ways-your-automated-phone-menu-can-engage-instead-of-enrage-customers/.

Of course, I always search in the past year for anything relevant. Check out these 11 Google tricks for fun.

But I digress...

All we can do is hope that the PTB at RandomBusiness get this message someday.

Postscript:

There are companies I won't go back to to because their phone menu is so awfully convoluted

or because I don't like the receptionist.

Gun Rant

Like everyone, I can't get over the paradox that is America, a modern democracy with all the potential in the world to do good and be good.


But, yet another terrible gun violence tragedy just unfolded in Florida.

I am Canadian. We also have a constitution, but have clear decisions on the "right to bear arms" concept. In Canada it does not fly.

 We own guns, we hunt, but we don't hunt humans. At least, we are trying to keep it that way. 

Americans cling to this ideal as if it is a human right, but the facts say otherwise.
The facts are guns account for 60% of violent deaths in the U.S.

If you need a bigger picture view of the problem, check out this exhaustive article in Vox. If that's not enough, here's another intensive analysis by the BBC.

Everyone calls for an answer, but we know what it is. Look to your neighbours.

Look to Canada.

We don't feel the need to own guns for protection, in fact most of us want an outright ban of guns in cities.

Please move forward.

The Bottle

If I put my rant in a bottle

And into the virtual sea

Would the internet take it

And bring it today

To the world so that others may see?

If I put my rant in a bottle 

And let it float far off from me

With hopes that my thought

Will not be for nought

Will it reach some minds willing to be?

If I put my rant in a bottle

And it causes a person to see

That, not only they,

Want some change right away

Could My resolve turn into We?

(Apologies to Jim Croce)