dattier@ddsw1.mcs.com (David Tamkin) (10/19/90)
In volume 10, issue 718, Brian Kantor wrote: | A human-factors consideration: when I was making my living as a | computer consultant a few years ago, I became sensitive to the fact | that people often needed to call me most when they were having | problems with their computers, and that the last thing someone who is | already upset with his machine needs to hear is another machine | answering the phone when he calls for help. | It was clear to me that the $25 a month for a real person (i.e., an | answering service) more than paid for itself in the number of jobs I | got. Fooey on whizz-bang technology: people want to talk to people, | not machines. Speaking as a consumer rather than as an entrepreneur, and speaking as a non-technophobic consumer, I'd rather talk to the *person I'm trying to reach* than to a machine, but when the person I'm trying to reach is not available, 1. I'd rather talk to an answering machine or a voice mailbox than listen to unanswered ringing; 2. I'd rather talk to an answering machine or a voice mailbox than have to keep redialing and redialing into endless busy signals because there are only as many lines as humans to answer them; 3. I'd rather leave a message on an answering machine or in a voice mailbox than with a human receptionist, because 3a: I can tell the whole story rather than have to leave out essential information in order for it to be short enough to fit on a message form; 3b: I can tell the whole story rather than have to make it quick so that the receptionist can answer other calls or do other work; 3c: I can say things that are for the destination party's ears only and get them communicated instead of leaving it at "ask [him/her] please to call me back" and wastefully extending the telephone tag because I can't second-guess their policies about what office staff are or are not allowed to hear; 3d: The message will get through correctly: I don't have to worry that someone who listens to me spell my name still writes it down wrong or that someone who repeats my number to me to confirm it writes it so illegibly that the person I'm trying to reach can't call back; 3e: (This one really burns me.) The machine will never listen to my entire message, claim to be writing it down, and then deliver only "Mr. Tamkin called" (or nothing at all!) instead of the message it promised to transmit; 3f: When I place a personal call and the party I want is out, I don't have to worry whether the household member who took the message will actually deliver it; 3g: On a personal call, I can say what I want and how I feel to a machine just as I would to the person I'm calling, but if another human answers I have to leave a message asking for the person I was trying to reach to call me back (or saying that I'll call again); reaching a human *thwarts* communication in that case. No, a machine is not a full substitute for the person you're trying to reach, but it has no rivals for second place. Sorry, but a machine beats an answering service hands down in my book. David Tamkin Box 7002 Des Plaines IL 60018-7002 708 518 6769 312 693 0591 MCI Mail: 426-1818 GEnie: D.W.TAMKIN CIS: 73720,1570 dattier@ddsw1.mcs.com
tjfs@tadtec.uucp (Tim Steele) (10/25/90)
In article <13852@accuvax.nwu.edu> dattier@ddsw1.mcs.com (David Tamkin) writes: > | A human-factors consideration: when I was making my living as a > | computer consultant a few years ago, I became sensitive to the fact > | that people often needed to call me most when they were having > | problems with their computers, and that the last thing someone who is > | already upset with his machine needs to hear is another machine > | answering the phone when he calls for help. When I was very young (!) I called a company in California from Cambridge, England using a British pay phone. I had a huge sack of 10p pieces to stuff into the phone (about one every three seconds!) I was so taken aback by the Californian accent on the other end that the conversation started like this: <rrrrrrrrrrring!> <rrrrrrrrrrrrring!> Phone: "Memory Merchant?" Me: "Uh ... are you an answering machine?" Phone: "<pause> I... don't think so!" Um. Tim tjfs@tadtec.uucp ...!uunet!mcvax!ukc!tadtec!tjfs Tadpole Technology plc, Science Park, Milton Road, CAMBRIDGE, CB4 4WQ Phone: +44-223-423030 Fax: +44-223-420772 Telex: 817316 TADTEC G
dattier@ddsw1.mcs.com (David Tamkin) (11/05/90)
Tim Steele misattributed the following to me in volume 10, issue 763: | > | A human-factors consideration: when I was making my living as a | > | computer consultant a few years ago ... Please, Mr. Steele, be more careful when you attribute quoted text! Those were not my words but rather something I in turn had quoted from yet a previous article. I've never been a computer consultant even as a dilettante, let alone as a way to earn a living, and I've never even qualified for such a position. I cannot let it be implied that I had made such an outlandish claim. My attorneys and my conscience now invite you to return to reading comp.dcom.telecom. David Tamkin Box 7002 Des Plaines IL 60018-7002 708 518 6769 312 693 0591 MCI Mail: 426-1818 GEnie: D.W.TAMKIN CIS: 73720,1570 dattier@ddsw1.mcs.com