I am not married to the most technologically savvy person. Further, she prefers life as simple as possible. That is to say she prefers real books to Kindles, TVs to tablets, kettles to microwaves--you likely get the picture. Generally, I see the pluses of technology. If I can go online and see when the next movie is playing, I'm game to do that or go to Hulu or Netflix to find something I can watch at home. However, it is not always the case. For instance, I got my wife a plane ticket to visit a friend in El Paso, Texas using one of the many online travel sites. However, in so doing, I did not use her full given name, but rather her chosen name. When she tried to check in at the airport, an officious ticketing agent told her that they could not issue her boarding passes.
When she called me (on her flip-phone, no less) she was beside herself. I turned the car around and quickly trotted out to the airport. Then immediately, I called the travel company to change the name on the ticket. Not as easy as you'd think, as it turned out. First, trying to find a phone number on their website involved going through a maze of a "help center" Q & A. Thankfully, they have a service where you can put in your name, number and itinerary and one of their agents will call you back--and they did at an amazing rate of speed. When I explained my predicament the agent (agent #1) was sympathetic took my info and transferred me to another department at which time, the call was dropped. I repeated the first step and this time a different agent took the call, but was able to see what had taken place. This time, agent #2 told me that she needed to transfer me to a different department who would interact with the airline and she would stay with me and call back if the call was dropped.
Although she was being helpful, two very long pauses took place in which I heard Adele's "Hello" (Dear Travel Company, not a great choice for a person put on hold) and a couple other tunes before being transferred again to another line where the hold music sounded like Hindi jazz--not bad, as it turned out. Finally, another agent came on to tell me that he would be putting me on hold for up to 10 minutes while he worked to resolve the "issue" with the airline and would that be okay? At this time, it is about 40 minutes before her plane is supposed to take off and my wife is fidgeting. To say she was staring daggers at me is an understatement.
Finally, agent #3 comes back to to the phone and tells me, "It is done." He says it in the way that a magician might and I had to imagine the washing motion of his hands to indicate the trick was over. After my wife was ticketed (and afforded a free checked bag for her trouble), I reflected on the amount of world traveling my request had made in a period of about an hour. The travel company uses a customer service team in India to conduct their off-peak calls. When the agents interacted with me, that covered about 20,000 miles and who-knows-how-many cell towers. It involved databases that connected information from myself to the travel company to the airline all of which is pinging around the globe through fiber optic and other cables. And finally, it involved licensing rights to Adele's and others' music all so my wife could visit her friend in Texas.
So, as perplexing as technology can be and how complex it feels to get things done, it is really a very cool thing that we have this ability to solve problems in a connected-world kind of way. I'm not saying that I won't get bent out of shape in the future, but I also experienced a moment of sheer "Wow"! I hope that we always will leave room for awe in this complex world of ours.
When she called me (on her flip-phone, no less) she was beside herself. I turned the car around and quickly trotted out to the airport. Then immediately, I called the travel company to change the name on the ticket. Not as easy as you'd think, as it turned out. First, trying to find a phone number on their website involved going through a maze of a "help center" Q & A. Thankfully, they have a service where you can put in your name, number and itinerary and one of their agents will call you back--and they did at an amazing rate of speed. When I explained my predicament the agent (agent #1) was sympathetic took my info and transferred me to another department at which time, the call was dropped. I repeated the first step and this time a different agent took the call, but was able to see what had taken place. This time, agent #2 told me that she needed to transfer me to a different department who would interact with the airline and she would stay with me and call back if the call was dropped.
Although she was being helpful, two very long pauses took place in which I heard Adele's "Hello" (Dear Travel Company, not a great choice for a person put on hold) and a couple other tunes before being transferred again to another line where the hold music sounded like Hindi jazz--not bad, as it turned out. Finally, another agent came on to tell me that he would be putting me on hold for up to 10 minutes while he worked to resolve the "issue" with the airline and would that be okay? At this time, it is about 40 minutes before her plane is supposed to take off and my wife is fidgeting. To say she was staring daggers at me is an understatement.
Finally, agent #3 comes back to to the phone and tells me, "It is done." He says it in the way that a magician might and I had to imagine the washing motion of his hands to indicate the trick was over. After my wife was ticketed (and afforded a free checked bag for her trouble), I reflected on the amount of world traveling my request had made in a period of about an hour. The travel company uses a customer service team in India to conduct their off-peak calls. When the agents interacted with me, that covered about 20,000 miles and who-knows-how-many cell towers. It involved databases that connected information from myself to the travel company to the airline all of which is pinging around the globe through fiber optic and other cables. And finally, it involved licensing rights to Adele's and others' music all so my wife could visit her friend in Texas.
So, as perplexing as technology can be and how complex it feels to get things done, it is really a very cool thing that we have this ability to solve problems in a connected-world kind of way. I'm not saying that I won't get bent out of shape in the future, but I also experienced a moment of sheer "Wow"! I hope that we always will leave room for awe in this complex world of ours.
No comments:
Post a Comment