Am I speaking to a human being?

[matty]

When I worked in a call centre, we had a voice recognition system. Sometimes people would just come straight through to a rep when they called, but most of the time when it was busy, they would go through the voice recognition system "screening" first.

One night, a customer asked me: "Isn't Annie working tonight?" I was confused for a moment or two, trying to think if I knew anyone called Annie who worked there.

Then I realised he was talking about the voice recognition system, which was called Annie, as in "Hi! I'm Annie - thanks for calling XYZ company".

So I said "Oh, that's right - Annie's not working tonight - she's, uh, broken".

I did feel slightly confused & amused!

[cinema guy]

One night, a customer asked me: "Isn't Annie working tonight?"

She'll be back tomorrow, tomorrow...

[HawaiianShirts]

In my call center days, I had one person tell me I should read for books on CD, a couple people comment that I would make a good reader for the automated phone systems, and several ask me if I was a person or a computer. Even changing the part of my intro from "this is HawaiianShirts" to "my name is HawaiianShirts" didn't reduce the questioning of my realness.

Even funnier was when I asked for a reference number (in the intro spiel) and they entered it on a key pad, me: "no, can I please take your reference number " ... beep buup baaap, "NO"

Had one of those, too.

Me: Thank you for calling XYZ, my name is HawaiianShirts. May I have your phone number, area code first, please?"
Caller: *beep beep boop boop beep beep beep boop beep boop*
Me: (wincing, returning earpiece to my head), Great. Now can you tell me your phone number so I can type it into the computer?
Caller: *GASP* omigosh! *click*

[Sharsarannon]

Automated systems are funny.
I had a question I had to phrase to a voice-recognition system, one requiring me to use the word Vallecitos. Now for those of your who don't speak ANY Spanish or just aren't familiar with it, that word should be said Vah-yeh-see-tohs. (or Vah-yeh-cthee-tohs, if you want it in proper Castillian, which isn't the local dialect)
Now, where I live, most people have a very good familiarity with this sort of thing. We joke about tourists who don't. Everyone knows how to say Spanish words, almost all our place names are Spanish.
So when my query to the automated system included the word pronounced correctly, imagine my surprise when the next question was phrased to me in rapid-fire Mexican Spanish.

Apparently the company in question says it " Vallah-see-dohs," and being able to say it correctly must mean I speak only Spanish!