IS IT POSSIBLE for the telephone to drive you mad?
I am satisfied the answer is yes.
The telephone is an absolutely essential device. Very few of us could live without one. And since the invention of the smartphone variety, it has become almost like another limb of the human body.
Ask the person next to you what’s his or her mother’s number and they will probably reach for their smartphone to look it up.
The phone has changed the way we use our brains. I still can remember the first telephone number in my mother’s home in Fitts Village and I remember when it changed from five to seven digits. Yet I can’t remember the number of my secretary or Operations Editor, both of whom I call a million times a day from my cellphone.
I am sure that many of you reading this article are like me – if you forget your cellular phone any day you have to return to get it or function at a fraction of your normal capacity for the entire day.
But compounding these challenges are the many ways in which businesses and service providers treat or mistreat us when we have to use the telephone to contact them. Now let me admit before anyone accuses me of not recognising my own faults that one of our biggest challenges traditionally in The Nation’s newsroom has been effectively handling our telephone traffic – but we recently took steps to improve this, and they are bearing fruit.
Just how frustrating the telephone can be when it is not answered came home to me in the most stark way two weeks ago while trying to reach psychiatrist Dr Berry Connell at the Psychiatric Hospital.
First there was the automated answering system that gave a few options. I chose the one that allowed me to spell the doctor’s last name. Twice I went through the routine, only to be told there was no such person.
Then I chose the first name option and again it said there was no such name in the directory. I concluded that it had to be that I just could not spell.
Back to the main number I went and chose another option – outpatient clinic. I got the ringing, then the message and a voicemail that did not take messages.
Again to the main number and another option – male admissions. There was a long set of ringing and then a message that the department was not reachable at the time.
Then a light turned on in my head: every business delights in collecting your money so there has to be somebody in the Accounts Department who would answer the phone, and maybe he or she will be kind enough to give me a direct number for this very well known doctor.
So back to the main number I went and on came the automatic answering service. I chose the “any department” option and then pressed the number for accounts. This was followed by eight rings before I heard the main answering system message giving me the list of options all over again. I tried it again and got the same routine.
By this time I was bordering on exasperation, but I still wanted Dr Connell, so I gave it a little thought. If there is one class of worker that always must be on duty at a hospital it would be a nurse.
Back to the telephone I went and again dialled the main number. This time a very pleasant-sounding female answered and I relayed my telephone expedition to her. She apologised and went in search of the direct number. Unfortunately, there was no answer when I dialled it.
For the record, I did eventually reach the goodly doctor and ended up feeling more than satisfied. But I can’t erase the fact that I spent a total of 23 minutes on the phone that afternoon accumulating nothing but frustration, and coming pretty close to being a mental case.
So here’s my recommendation. At least let each option end with a voicemail so a caller can leave a message if he or she desires.
