The Laughing Wolf

I Hate Voicemail

I miss the days when a real person answered the phone anywhere. Most voicemail systems are programmed with little regard for what a person outside needs, but are done with “internal think” instead. It is done with the terminology, beliefs of what the internal people think the outside will want, and other blinkered considerations.

I am on the phone, sort-of, with technical support at my main ISP right now. The fact is, they have a system that requires you to spend a lot of time getting through, and makes no allowance that I might have a question other than one of the top five most asked.

Well, I got through quicker than expected, and after about 10 minutes had the issue resolved. I can’t do something I wanted to do because of efforts to beat back the triple-damned spammers, but we did find an acceptable alternative.

One of the other bloggers was complaining the other day about the closing of open relay, and all the good that it could do. With the focus on the evil done through it, the good is overlooked, and the decision was made to attack a mechanism rather than do something about the root cause of the problem. Quite a parallel to many current social issues and how crime is addressed in places like England, where it is illegal to fight back anymore. After all, it is not the person who is the problem, it is the crime… And if you think I am joking or engaging in hyperbole, do some research and if anything I am understating the problem.

So, PC-thought rules the day in cyberspace as well. The thing being used to facilitate the crime (spam) is the problem, not the people committing the crime. Feh.

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