When after 27 minutes I finally was transferred to a theoretically live agent, he or she was so unable to speak coherent English that I had to hang up and start all over again. This is how I know the automated message process went on for 27 minutes: I timed it. The fact that the voice on the recording can speak clearly and coherently while the live people you must wait so long to talk to sound like Eddie Murphy playing “Buhwheat” on SNL is an example of an unethical bait-and-switch. The principle problem is, of course, inexcusable under-staffing, yet another curse US society received courtesy of Dr. Fauci and the Wuhan virus fearmongers.

3. AI has entered the fray. I used to hang up the second I heard the little “bloop!” sound that told me that I was the victim of a some poor sap working through a call list for the minimum wage. Now I hang up when I hear the tell-tale “Hello? Can you hear me?” greeting of a bot. The female version begins that way; a male version goes so far as to clear “his” throat and apologize, sometimes saying, “I’m sorry to hear that” when I reply, “Fuck you!” The bots are actively trying to fool [idiots] into thinking they are real people. This is unethical: I don’t care if the organization is giving away gold bars, if they begin by lying to me, I won’t enable such dishonest tactics by continuing the call. They also use fake caller ID, which is supposed to be illegal. I get the IRS, the Dept. of Education, law firms, the police, radio stations and lately, fake people; a few weeks ago, I got 37 AI calls in a single day.

4. You knew I couldn’t get through this post without mentioning my bete noire, DirecTV.

The TV service,”free of charge,” replaced my old “Genie” satellite system with the supposedly superior internet-driven “Gemini” system, which has broken down repeatedly, twice necessitating visits from a technician. DirecTV also replaced its terrible automated phone tree with “Eva, your virtual technician” who is an AI incompetent. When my streaming service died for no discernible reason two days ago, Eva, beginning with her trademark, “I’m sorry to hear that. Let’s see what the problem is” led me down a series of metaphorical rabbit holes.

I began by including the information that there was no problem with my internet connection, and she asked, “Do you have an internet connection?” I replied, “I just said I did, Eva: why aren’t you paying attention to what I say?” Her answer: “I know how frustrating that can be,” to which I answered, “I don’t need your empathy, I need to have the service I am paying for work. Tell me how I accomplish that.” She then gave me a complex procedure requiring me to go upstairs to read the back of my modem, then log into Verizon to change by password, then click on “Settings” on my TV screen and more. I told her/it that none of that was feasible, that I am not a tech and don’t want to be, that I was mobility impaired (which is untrue, but I was pissed: is it unethical to lie to a bot?) and that I was sick of their system breaking down. To this Eva replied, “I can sense the frustration in your voice!” to which I replied, “Fuck you, Eva.”

That finally elicited “Would you like to speak to a live technician?” after almost a half-hour of futile banter. I answered in the affirmative, whereupon I had to (for the second time) tell Eva my name, Zip Code, and “the phone number associated with my account,” which “she” already had.

Then I got a live agent, as usual speaking with some unidentifiable accent and with a name I couldn’t pronounce. I went through the whole sad tale once again. “Can you see your Gemini box?” she asked immediately. “Yes,” I said. “It’s right in front of me.”

“Push the little red button on the side.”

“What will happen when I do?”

“It should clean up your system and fix the problem.”

So I did. And sure enough, less than a minute after I pushed the red button, everything worked perfectly. I started laughing.

“Wait: I just spent almost half an hour getting baroque instructions from “Eva” about how to fix my problem, and the actual solution was to “push the little red button”? I said. “Why didn’t Eva know that?”

My live agent started laughing too. “I’m sorry, sir. Eva hasn’t quite caught up.” This was like a Bob Newhart comedy routine. I told her she had been wonderful, asked her to relay the fact that Eva was incompetent, thanked her for solving my problem so quickly, and continued to laugh about my latest Unabomber experience for several minutes.

Post Script: The Netflix movie about the Unabomber is disturbing. Apparently Ted aspired to be an ethicist. He clearly went awry somewhere along the line. The film puts Harvard in a harsh light, so naturally I enjoyed it.