The no humans availabe Rufuz the Robot shindig

[spitzl0630]

Imagine with me here, there's this company. It has 20% market share at least. They sell Internet, which never sleeps. Now... imagine that their customer service representatives go to bed in the early evening, and even earlier on Saturday when more of their customers are surfing the 'net. [[ absurd! antic! bizarre! comic! comical! contemptible! daffy! derisory! droll! fantastic! farcical! foolheaded! foolish! gelastic! goofy! grotesque! harebrained! hilarious! impossible! incredible! jerky! laughable! ludicrous! nonsensical! nutty! outrageous! preposterous! risible! sappy! silly! slaphappy! unbelievable! wacky! ]] Wow that made my ears pop out a bit. How silly. But it gets even better. Now imagine that they have this special restricted class of service. When they switch you to it your web browser says "please wait while you are redirected...." and then... wait for it.......... yes, you're on someone's 'internet', but.......... YOU CANNOT PAY! THEY DON'T WANT TO ACCEPT YOUR MONEY ON THEIR SECURE PAGE! YOU CANNOT ACCESS AT&T'S OWN WEB SITE! YOU CANNOT SEE YOUR BILL! YOU CANNOT GET THROUGH TO THEM! ALL YOU GET IS A SINGLE PAGE THAT SAYS THEY'VE ALL GONE HOME FOR THE NIGHT! YOU MUST PICK UP A TELEPHONE (what's that??) AND CALL RUFUZ THE DROOLING "Sorry I didn't catch that" ROBOT (who cannot answer your simple billing question anyway, he's worth a thread on his own) [[ break up! break out laughing! burst! cachinnate! chortle! chuckle! convulse! crack up! crow! die laughing! fracture! giggle! grin! guffaw! howl! roar! roll in the aisles! scream! shriek! snicker! snort! split one's sides! titter! whoop! in stitches! ]] [[ "Eh--- they re-NAT you and remap DNS for THIS? How many years ago was squid invented, with its smart proxy and flexible access lists? This is the system administrator's expertise level of 'hi mom look redirection workz, i'll finish it tomorrow to let 'em pay and get turned on immediately and stuff'!!" ]] Tomorrow never arrived. I can only imagine that when the customer service representatives arrive bright and early next business day (to start taking calls when it's too late to call, you're at work) they spend some of those early hours they could have spent taking calls --- listening to the recorded calls of desperate sessions into the night and early morning with Rufuz the Drooling "Sorry I didn't catch that!" Robot. That must really crack them up! Jabbing at each other, tears of laughter down their faces... "listen I heard the touch tone zero, he's trying for an operator. Wait and see what Rufuz does next, it's a scream!" "She is stuttering now, she must really be angry, he he." "We've got a double-tap! He just paid twice 'cause he thought he made a mistake!" "No mistake bub. We zap the money instantly and then send a slow baudot TELEX to the turn-em-on machine." "After the 'you're a valued customer but you'll just have to wait, wait." How much would 24x7 customer service cost, really. For the likes of me, I mean. Still waiting. They have an urgent matter to discuss with me, imagine that. A human customer service operator would have done it faster. Or done it, period. Love the pop-up video of the nice lady explaining how to use a mouse on a web page, but neglecting to mention there are no humans such as she behind it. I have no complaints at all about AT&T's corporate culture. Just having difficulty finding it, is all. Please forward this to someone in AT&T upper management who will find it funny and take it seriously besides. And if this message isn't shadowed, censored and unmade... all you folk out there why don't you add your piece. Let's make it a real shindig, try to outdo me.