A Solitary Lunch Interrupted
With his wife out, his dog walked, and his oldest sons at their places of employment, Guardian columnist Tim Dowling found himself enjoying a rare moment of solitude in his home. He was lingering over a leisurely lunch when his peace was shattered. His phone pinged with a text message from his bank.
The message was alarming: "Your address has been updated. If you didn't make this request … please contact us urgently." Knowing he had done no such thing, Dowling's relaxed afternoon was instantly over. He abandoned his meal and headed to his office shed to address the potential security breach.
The Labyrinth of Automated Customer Service
Locating the helpline number on the bank's website was the easy part. What followed was a classic dance of modern frustration. A robot asked him to state his reason for calling aloud. "You told me to call you," he replied, a statement the automated system found unsatisfactory.
After rejecting a list of pre-programmed reasons and painstakingly inputting his identifying numbers via the keypad, the bank simply hung up on him. On his second attempt, he rephrased his reason and spoke slowly. He was offered a choice between hold music and a soothing tone. He chose the music, wanting to preserve his irritation, a decision he soon regretted.
When a human voice finally cut through the terrible song, he explained the situation clearly. After a long silence, the agent began to transfer him, but the next part was garbled. Loud music returned, followed by a recorded voice that delivered the shocking verdict: "You're being transferred to our 60+ customers maintenance team."
Patronised by Gareth on the 'Befuddlement' Hotline
"I'm what?" Dowling said to no one. The music stopped and a new voice, belonging to Gareth, came on the line. It became immediately clear that Gareth had received special training for dealing with confused older people. He spoke with excruciating slowness and treated every statement with a blank, earnest patience that Dowling found deeply patronising.
Wondering what he had said to deserve this fate, Dowling decided to lean into the role. He interrupted Gareth to propose a theory: his savings account had recently been migrated from a closed online bank to Gareth's bank, where he coincidentally already had an account. He suspected an old address had been updated automatically, triggering the false alarm.
This attempt to sound lucid backfired spectacularly. Gareth's tone shifted to one of "indulgent concern, as if he's just trying to keep me on the line until the ambulance arrives." When asked to confirm his account balance, Dowling's defeated "Absolutely no idea" only sealed his fate as a befuddled old man.
By the time he hung up, he felt totally enfeebled. The final insult was having no one at home to complain to. When his wife returned, she laughed at all the wrong parts of his story. "The point is, how did they know?" he insisted. "What gave me away?" He retreated to his office shed to sit in the gathering dark, consoling himself with the thought that this would seem funny later. For now, there was nothing to do but wait.
