MARK MY WORDS: TACKLING TELEPHONE TALK

Telephones used to be indispensable devices for communicating.

But thanks to modern technology, we don't have to talk to each other anymore. Instead, our calls are routed from one computer voice to another, leaving the caller to wander through an electronic maze.

Reporters spend a lot of time on the phone trying to reach their sources, who are people who get quoted a lot whether or not they know anything.

But with all this technology, reporters increasingly spend their time lost in voice mail. This means they don't get to talk to a real person so they have to settle for interviewing each other or reusing old quotes.

Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone so that teen-agers would have something to do with their spare time. Soon, people discovered there was another use for the telephone: You could order pizza.

Today, we have progressed to the point that we don't even need to talk to people. We can communicate by voice mail.

Businesses used to have secretaries who answered the telephones and made coffee.

Today, politically incorrect secretaries still make coffee. But the telephone answering is done electronically. An automated system directs the caller to punch different buttons on the phone to get to a particular office or department.

Large companies love this technology because they can shuttle your call to a hundred different departments without ever once having to pay someone to answer the phone.

A call to a large utility company goes something like this.

Ring, ring, ring. Click.

"Thank you for calling. If you are calling from a Touchtone telephone, press 1 now."

Caller presses 1. "Welcome to the customer service center. To report a wire down or a gas leak, press 1 now. To report your lights out or a gas service problem, press 2 now."

This could be confusing. If a wire is down and your lights are out, should you call 1 or 2, or just add the two together?

"If you are changing addresses or a light bulb, or calling about all the money you owe us, please press 3 now." This one gets punched a lot.

Such technology would be particularly helpful to the nation's understaffed police departments.

Instead of having to pay all those dispatchers, police departments could rely on COPS (Computer Operated ProgramS).

Here is how it would work. Say you are being mugged, raped, murdered or robbed, and you need help.

Assuming that the assailant doesn't mind you using the phone, you can call COPS.

After 30 rings, which is sufficient time for you to become a statistic, the VOICE answers.

"You have reached COPS. If you wish to report a mugging, press 1. If you wish to report a rape, press 2. If you wish to report a murder, press 3. If you wish to report senseless violence, press 5.

"If you wish to hear an update on the O.J. Simpson trial, press any number.

"If you wish to speak to a real person, please hold and someone (probably the janitor) will talk to you."

I think a similar system might be useful at home. When someone rings, they would get a computer voice.

"Greetings. You are speaking to my computer. If you are an obnoxious bill collector, please hang up. If you are a friend, please press 1. If you are a close relative, please press 2. If you are selling something, the answer is no.

"If you are the babysitter, please press 0 and I'll be right with you."

~Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.