AUTOFONIC

I have never much liked automatic telephone responses. I much prefer the warm tones of another human being than the aloofness of a disembodied electronic voice. A firm I rang last week is a case in point. I rang my contact there yesterday and one of the disembodieds, female in gender, said: ‘You have been forwarded to a voice mail system. However, number xxx xxxx does not subscribe to this service. Goodbye.’ The vehemence with which the goodbye was uttered brought me in mind of Ann Robinson’s farewell to the most buffoonish contestants in ‘The Weakest Link.’ All this closely follows another incident concerning the same firm, in which I rang its local Edinburgh office, to speak to that same person, as it happens. The phone rang for ages, before a lady (real, this time) answered. I asked ‘Could I speak to so-and-so, please.’ ‘Who?’ ‘So-and-so.’ ‘Don’t know her. Could you spell it, please?’ I spelled it. ‘No-one of that name here,’ she said. ‘How can there be no-one of that name there,’ I enquired, ‘when she’s been working there for over two years?’ The lady re-checked. ‘No-one of that name here,’ she repeated, grimly. ‘Don’t you know the name of everybody who works in Edinburgh, then?’ I asked. ‘Edinburgh?, she replied. This isn’t Edinburgh. It’s Farnborough, in Hampshire. After six rings all the calls are automatically diverted to us.’