I’m so proud of myself.
I kept getting these annoying automated phone calls that hung up after two rings. It was an 866 number, and I knew it was something I didn’t want to deal with. But I caught one on call-waiting while talking to my brother, said, “Gotta go, this thing’s been calling me all day!” and caught it.
“Hello?”
“Hello! This is A&S research, blahblahblah survey, blahblahblah, few questions. If you are 18 or over, press one. If you are under 18, press two.”
I pressed two.
“Thank you. Goodbye.”
Score!
Smarter than your average phonebot, that’s me.
I knew they wouldn’t want to talk to a kid. Probably illegal.
Ha. Ha, I say.
Don’t you have a vague feeling of some missed opportunity, of some blurry but beautiful possible new horizons, after resolving a case like this?
Nah, still jetlagged…
Until I was a parent, I never understood just how proud one could feel for outwitting a two-year-old.
Eric, I’m not a parent, and I know exactly how you feel. Kids are smart. And manipulative. When you finally get the chance to outwit them, you have to savor every victory.
Fourth graders are worse, though. I’m constantly foiling the “meet-you-in-the-bathroom” plot. One kid asks to go, thirty seconds later, that kid’s pal asks to go. I’ve stopped that dead by insisting they wait until the other comes back. They never complain, because it was just a ploy to get out of class and goof off.
We have been instructed NOT to press ANYTHING – apparently there is a way they can use your phone line for overseas calls, but you have to press a key to activate it.
Or is that another hoax?
Anyway, we’ve told our kids to just hang up without pressing anything.
Urban legend.
If you don’t have a PBX phone system in your home — and most people don’t — they can’t do squat when you press a button during a phone calls.
At work, however, that’s a different story.
I’m sure People for the Ethical Treatment of Robots are planning to protest lying to innocent machines.