-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas Lunde <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Future Work <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: February 07, 1999 8:18 AM
Subject: Re: FW A very thought provoking paper
>Thomas:
>
>This is a lengthy essay with many new ideas to absorb, I was fascinated and
>overwhelmed. There are some very new thoughts in here and some good
>interpretations of changes that we are all involved in but haven't really
>had anyone explain to us. For example, these incredibly cumbersome voice
>programs you get when you call a company for information in which you have
>to listen to a number of menu choices and may never deal with a real human
>is an attempt, according to the author, to move information that was once
>analog, two people talking to each other, to digital where your responses
>are immediately coded into bits and bites for more efficient storage and
>retrieval - a thought I had not encountered before and which explains my
>resistance to a major cultural change that new technology and business is
>forcing on us.
While it may be true that voice programs are a way of converting analog
information to digital, they are also a way for the supplier to shuck off a
lot of work onto the consumer instead of paying an employee to do it for the
consumer. It takes YOU a lot more time and vexation to accomplish a simple
request through a voice program than it did talking to a real human being.
For instance, I live in the country and it is often not convenient for me to
take in my library books when they are due. I used to phone the library,
give my card number verbally and the librarian would renew all my books at
once. Now I have to listen to the synthesized voice go through its menu,
input my card number on the keypad, and then renew the book titles one by
one as the voice lists them. Other common examples of businesses making the
consumer not only pay for the product but do most of the work--the
ubiquitous self-serve gas station; the ATM bank machine and (soon to come)
the self-service checkout at the supermarket (this is being pilot-tested in
the USA and I don't doubt that it's soon going to be u-scan and u-bag all
over).
Live long and prosper
Victor Milne & Pat Gottlieb
FIGHT THE BASTARDS! An anti-neoconservative website
at http://www3.sympatico.ca/pat-vic/pat-vic/
LONESOME ACRES RIDING STABLE
at http://www3.sympatico.ca/pat-vic/
