Given the crazy state of the world, a lot of people are unemployed, out of work, unable to do anything as the coronavirus wreaks its havoc. My dad is part of those unfortunate set of people, especially due to his age and all his health complications. We're lucky that he was only working mostly as a formality, really, as he's been "retired" for a few years now, and could afford to still make things work without that income.
Yet, unemployment benefits appealed to him (and honestly, at that amount, me too). But his retirement required us to have to call and talk to a representative. Which...isn't that easy.
You see, remember when I mentioned that "a lot of people are unemployed"? Yeah, it's a bit nigh on impossible to actually get through to an agent, to the point where they try to loop you around on one of those auto keypad response recordings. We've been trying for two weeks, on and off, calling every hour or two to try to get through to them. Except, it never works. But every day, my dad looks at me, points at my phone, and goes "money please", so we try to call, again, again, and again.
Today, I let him hold my phone while on the robo-dial portion, bored of trying fruitlessly after so many attempts. I kept it on speaker so he can hear it without trying so hard to press the phone to his ear, but he didn't seem to notice, still holding my phone as close as possible. In the process of doing that, he ends up hitting a bunch of numpad keys on the screen.
Usually, you press one key at a time during though, but he hit so many and so quickly that it ended up confusing the robo system so badly that it froze, and started ringing. Then, after so long, we were connected to someone who was talking. Their connection was cutting in and out, and I could barely hear what they were saying on the speaker phone. Were they real? Or was it some new script being read?
So, in my most genius moment, I yelled out across the room to the phone, "ARE YOU A REAL PERSON? YOU'RE NOT A ROBOT ARE YOU?"
There was a pause.
So my dad must have decided to make the executive decision that I'd ruined everything and it was up to him to fix it and make this possible human talk back to us. So he, as loud as I did, despite being centimeters from the phone, screamed, "PLEASE LADY. YOU'RE REAL RIGHT? I NEED MONEY. PLEASE GIVE ME THE MONEY!!!"
Absolutely. Brilliant.
And then came the fairly levelheaded response of "excuse me...? What do you mean a real person? Are you okay?"
Nervous and slightly terrified, both my dad and I started talking at the same time, "ahaha...I mean you're not one of those auto scripted recording things, you know ehehe?" and "Hello lady I need the money. Can you helping me get the money from you?"
We must have seemed insane at best, and like deranged scammers on a drug high at worst to this phone operative.
And like, to her credit, she was pretty calm for being called a robot and being yelled at in very broken English.
So, I guess she decides to not hang up on us, and continue as usual, thankfully. She begins asking my dad the usual questions. "What's your name, when were you born" and all that. To which my dad tries his absolute best to sound American, and not have an accent, which just honestly sounds so stilted and awkward, like someone reading a teleprompter with a gun to their head. And that's sad, because my dad is quite proud of his "real Am-ar-he-can, yehaw!" accent.
Then, she asks the fateful question.
"What is your home address?"
Dad, the intellect that he is, replies earnestly and happily with, "Oh! My house? I don't actually know, haha!"
Yknow, like a normal, absolutely, completely, regular, average person would say.
The operator is understandably confused and concerned, and asks him if he can go outside and read the address on his place of residence. Dad, however, has heard enough warnings from my mom to know that outside = bad.
"Oh, I can't go outside, my wife telling me never go outside again"
I didn't think it could get worse, but then it did.
"What do you mean you can't go outside. Sir? Are you currently okay right now?"
I pray, silently, that he says something normal.
But this is dad, why would I ever hope for something like that?
At the top of his lungs, he howls, "I AM SICK! SO VERY SICK. OH NO. OH MY. I CANNOT TALK. *fake coughing* Please, let my daughter talk for me!"
I'm frantically waving at him to please stop talking. Clearly, this makes literally everything 100% more suspicious to the operator. The end result is that I'm not allowed to talk on the phone on his behalf until my dad verbally agrees to it, but he has to prove his identity first.
He says his social number with ease, telling the woman that isn't he such a good American, knowing that number so well? He's truly the peak citizen.
An audible sigh rings through the speaker, and she ignores him to ask for his address, again.
Of which...he doesn't know any way to say it, or find out.
Peak citizen indeed.
He relays this by telling both me and the representative that he never really knows the address of where he lives. He just knows where to go home after being outside.
Kind of like a little lost puppy.
Quietly, I tell dad what the address is, and he parrots my words back over the phone. Except, that’s super mega illegal, I guess. At least, that’s what she interrupts us to say. No outside force can tell my dad what to say or how to say his identifying information. It all falls to him. He has to do this, all on his own. He heads outside to check the address, but the street name isn’t anywhere on the house, and he has no idea where the numbers are. Silently, I start holding up fingers to tell him the numbers of the address.
He relays them one-by-one, in the most unnatural tone that anyone has ever told an address in the history of the earth.
I frantically find some paper and write down the name of the street as well, but he decides to read the letters off one at a time, as well. After an agonizing few moments, he's gotten all his information, and it's correct. She says he's proven his identity and he can now pass the phone to me to act on his behalf.
Before I can yank the phone away from my dad, he tells the representative that she is very nice and kind to help her fellow American like this. He then immediately follows this heartfelt gratitude with a plethora of fake coughing, again yelling, "OH, OH NO. I AM THE SICK. I MUST LETTING MY CHILD SPEAK FOR ME. GOODBYE, NICE LADY. HAVE A GOOD DAY"
Although he'd sounded like a hostage at some points, and incomprehensibly and awkwardly incompetent at other points, he'd done it. Somehow.
Thank you, random woman, for not hanging up on my dad.
EDIT: And thank you, everyone, because apparently this is my 50th blog. Here's to blogging even more weird events about my dad in the future.
Yet, unemployment benefits appealed to him (and honestly, at that amount, me too). But his retirement required us to have to call and talk to a representative. Which...isn't that easy.
You see, remember when I mentioned that "a lot of people are unemployed"? Yeah, it's a bit nigh on impossible to actually get through to an agent, to the point where they try to loop you around on one of those auto keypad response recordings. We've been trying for two weeks, on and off, calling every hour or two to try to get through to them. Except, it never works. But every day, my dad looks at me, points at my phone, and goes "money please", so we try to call, again, again, and again.
Today, I let him hold my phone while on the robo-dial portion, bored of trying fruitlessly after so many attempts. I kept it on speaker so he can hear it without trying so hard to press the phone to his ear, but he didn't seem to notice, still holding my phone as close as possible. In the process of doing that, he ends up hitting a bunch of numpad keys on the screen.
Usually, you press one key at a time during though, but he hit so many and so quickly that it ended up confusing the robo system so badly that it froze, and started ringing. Then, after so long, we were connected to someone who was talking. Their connection was cutting in and out, and I could barely hear what they were saying on the speaker phone. Were they real? Or was it some new script being read?
So, in my most genius moment, I yelled out across the room to the phone, "ARE YOU A REAL PERSON? YOU'RE NOT A ROBOT ARE YOU?"
There was a pause.
So my dad must have decided to make the executive decision that I'd ruined everything and it was up to him to fix it and make this possible human talk back to us. So he, as loud as I did, despite being centimeters from the phone, screamed, "PLEASE LADY. YOU'RE REAL RIGHT? I NEED MONEY. PLEASE GIVE ME THE MONEY!!!"
Absolutely. Brilliant.
And then came the fairly levelheaded response of "excuse me...? What do you mean a real person? Are you okay?"
Nervous and slightly terrified, both my dad and I started talking at the same time, "ahaha...I mean you're not one of those auto scripted recording things, you know ehehe?" and "Hello lady I need the money. Can you helping me get the money from you?"
We must have seemed insane at best, and like deranged scammers on a drug high at worst to this phone operative.
And like, to her credit, she was pretty calm for being called a robot and being yelled at in very broken English.
So, I guess she decides to not hang up on us, and continue as usual, thankfully. She begins asking my dad the usual questions. "What's your name, when were you born" and all that. To which my dad tries his absolute best to sound American, and not have an accent, which just honestly sounds so stilted and awkward, like someone reading a teleprompter with a gun to their head. And that's sad, because my dad is quite proud of his "real Am-ar-he-can, yehaw!" accent.
Then, she asks the fateful question.
"What is your home address?"
Dad, the intellect that he is, replies earnestly and happily with, "Oh! My house? I don't actually know, haha!"
Yknow, like a normal, absolutely, completely, regular, average person would say.
The operator is understandably confused and concerned, and asks him if he can go outside and read the address on his place of residence. Dad, however, has heard enough warnings from my mom to know that outside = bad.
"Oh, I can't go outside, my wife telling me never go outside again"
I didn't think it could get worse, but then it did.
"What do you mean you can't go outside. Sir? Are you currently okay right now?"
I pray, silently, that he says something normal.
But this is dad, why would I ever hope for something like that?
At the top of his lungs, he howls, "I AM SICK! SO VERY SICK. OH NO. OH MY. I CANNOT TALK. *fake coughing* Please, let my daughter talk for me!"
I'm frantically waving at him to please stop talking. Clearly, this makes literally everything 100% more suspicious to the operator. The end result is that I'm not allowed to talk on the phone on his behalf until my dad verbally agrees to it, but he has to prove his identity first.
He says his social number with ease, telling the woman that isn't he such a good American, knowing that number so well? He's truly the peak citizen.
An audible sigh rings through the speaker, and she ignores him to ask for his address, again.
Of which...he doesn't know any way to say it, or find out.
Peak citizen indeed.
He relays this by telling both me and the representative that he never really knows the address of where he lives. He just knows where to go home after being outside.
Kind of like a little lost puppy.
Quietly, I tell dad what the address is, and he parrots my words back over the phone. Except, that’s super mega illegal, I guess. At least, that’s what she interrupts us to say. No outside force can tell my dad what to say or how to say his identifying information. It all falls to him. He has to do this, all on his own. He heads outside to check the address, but the street name isn’t anywhere on the house, and he has no idea where the numbers are. Silently, I start holding up fingers to tell him the numbers of the address.
He relays them one-by-one, in the most unnatural tone that anyone has ever told an address in the history of the earth.
I frantically find some paper and write down the name of the street as well, but he decides to read the letters off one at a time, as well. After an agonizing few moments, he's gotten all his information, and it's correct. She says he's proven his identity and he can now pass the phone to me to act on his behalf.
Before I can yank the phone away from my dad, he tells the representative that she is very nice and kind to help her fellow American like this. He then immediately follows this heartfelt gratitude with a plethora of fake coughing, again yelling, "OH, OH NO. I AM THE SICK. I MUST LETTING MY CHILD SPEAK FOR ME. GOODBYE, NICE LADY. HAVE A GOOD DAY"
Although he'd sounded like a hostage at some points, and incomprehensibly and awkwardly incompetent at other points, he'd done it. Somehow.
Thank you, random woman, for not hanging up on my dad.
EDIT: And thank you, everyone, because apparently this is my 50th blog. Here's to blogging even more weird events about my dad in the future.
