In this era of automated everything, where businesses large and small are doing their best to reduce costs, one aspect of most businesses has become the automated telephone system. Such systems come in two varieties. Those that aren’t excessively frustrating and those that are.

Among the systems that are most frustrating are those with a long menu and no option for anything besides specific topics that aren’t what you’re calling about. So after nine options, none of which relate to the subject of your call, you have to go through the menu and guess which option is the closest to what you’re calling about. That gets followed with a second menu that often turns out to have nothing to do with the subject you’re calling about. If you’re fortunate, you may find what you called about.

Then there’s the system that actually asks you the subject of your call. Except… it often doesn’t recognize the words you’re using because it’s only programmed to “accept” certain words.

The best systems, to my mind, are like the one used by my local pharmacy. If you know your prescription number and your phone number, you can refill the prescription automatically. If you don’t, you can switch directly to a pharmacy technician. If it’s after hours you can leave your name and number and describe your problem, and someone will call you back during working hours – and they do.

On the other hand, there’s the current IRS system, where there’s been no way to get an answer to your questions either online or by telephone for two months, and there’s no way to reach a live person. My inquiry wasn’t vital. After three months, I just wanted to know when I might get my refund. Even though I filed electronically, and received a confirmation, the automated system couldn’t even find my return. I’ll certainly survive, but there are millions of people out there who are facing financial distress… and a whole lot of them are in the same limbo…and for them it’s serious.

Even before the coronavirus hit, for anything other than a simple problem, it took an hour or more to reach a real person. I know. Last year, the IRS lost a check I sent them for an amended return [because you can’t file amended returns electronically, nor pay them electronically]. I knew the USPS didn’t lose the check because the Treasury cashed it, but it took three months for them to acknowledge that they found it [and I spent HOURS on hold waiting to talk to a real person].

Computers, automated answering systems, and incompetence can combine to create even more frustration. My wife didn’t get a bill on schedule from a financial institution for her credit card and wanted to know what she owed. So she called the institution last week. Even with her credit card number, Social Security number, address, and email, they wouldn’t tell her unless she could tell them what her last purchase had been. She had several small purchases recently, but she couldn’t find the receipts or give them exact numbers. Without that exactitude, they wouldn’t reveal her balance. She could, of course, go online and set up access to her account, something that she’s been reluctant to do, and which would just create another system with another password. They did agree to send another copy of the bill to the email on file and by regular mail. So far, she’s seen neither.

Then there were the pastries we ordered. Somehow the vendor’s system decided to send them to our daughter, because that was where the last order went. When we discovered that – three minutes after we got a confirmation email – we called the vendor… and ended up on hold. Twenty minutes later, someone answered. We corrected the shipping address. The person on the other end assured us everything was taken care of. Four days later, the pastries ended up at our daughter’s house. I’m sure she and her family will enjoy them.