For Insanity, Press Seven

"Thank you, Mr. Dermo"

We moved recently. We moved only a few miles away, but, as far as certain "service" companies were concerned, we may as well have moved to Mars. Perhaps you too have encountered one of the absolute non-miracles of our digital age (some might say, The Middle Digit Age), the Main Menu, on which everything is a la carte. Here is our compendium of recently recorded Main Menu telephone "conversations:"


1. " To continue in English, please press 1 and do not whine about English being relegated to a 'second language' or mention how stupid it is that you have to press a digit, instead of someone who doesn't understand English. These might lead to a disconnection and/or losing your place in the queue, which, for your information, is not spelled c-u-e. If you do not press 1 and are a resident of Arizona, you will be asked a few brief questions by a representative of the Arizona Department of Immigration and Naturalization."

2A. "For Billing and Accounting questions , please press 2 and be prepared with your 27 digit account number. If you cannot remember your account number, which data shows 99.9% of callers cannot or, if you are not calling from the phone number listed on your forgotten account, you will be asked several 'security questions' you answered when establishing the forgotten account. If you cannot remember the correct answers to these questions, for example, What is the mother's maiden name of person who stole your first boy/girlfriend, you probably don't have an account with us, and you may hang up."

2B. "For Billing and Accounting questions (Cable). Please note: we are a cable company, and, as such, nobody outside of a few geeks inside the Accounting Department actually understands cable billing, and these geeks are not available for consultation. We recommend canceling service, at which point you can speak immediately with a sales representative. They do not understand your bill either, but they may offer you a slightly better deal in order to keep you as a customer, and, although you will still not understand your bill, you might pay a little less each month for a couple of months anyway."

3/4. "For repairs, technical assistance or to make or cancel an appointment or installation, please press 3. If you are calling about removal of 30 feet or more of unnecessary cabling and stapling in a room, which may or may not have actually needed cabling, you will need to remove it yourself; however, please go back to the Main Menu and press 4, so that you can temporarily turn off service. Please note, we are not responsible for injuries due to self-repair. Also, Please Note: all appointments and installations require the presence of an over 18 year-old adult on the premise, and do not even think about trying to make appointments outside our regular 8am-2pm and 2pm-8pm slots."

In your dreams....

0. "Sir/Madame, Please do not press 0 again. Pressing 0 will not bring you to an Operator, because we do not have any, and it will not bring you to a representative. At the end of this menu, you will be instructed as to how to properly receive representative service, since the menu has been created in order to reduce the cost of having representatives, which only creates a bigger monthly bill for you.

5. "For Customer Service, please go to www.wedontdothatanymore.com or press 5, but we highly recommend our web service, which has been specifically designed to avoid having to offshore customer service representative jobs, which, if we were going to hire customer service representatives anymore, which we most assuredly are not,  almost certainly would be American jobs for Americans, who usually press #1 and speak reasonably good American English with local colloquialisms, lilts, and other kinds of things your grandmother would remember if she can remember much of anything."

6-8. "Pressing these numbers will not actually bring you anywhere except back to the beginning of the Main Menu, which, as you already know if you've ever eaten there, is longer than the wine list at La Tour d'Argent in Paris. You should have pressed something in the 1-5 range already. If you have not pressed any number, due to having a sorry, old  a rotary dial, Hah!

La Tour d'Menu

9. "If you now want to speak with a representative or require phone trauma therapy, press 9. If you would like to speak with a trainee, we offer service at no charge. If you would like to speak with an experienced representative, who might be helpful, we charge $10 per each five minutes. If you would like to speak with a supervisor-level representative, who will use their real local name and not a made-up American type name and actually answer your inquiry somewhat to your satisfaction, we charge $25 per each 10 minutes. Please have your credit card number, expiration date, security code, and the name of your first pet available. If you never had a pet, that's terrible, go back to the Main Menu."