Monotonous + rigid = professional?
Have you ever noticed that in an attempt to sound “professional”, perhaps, things come out monotonous and rigid?
Let’s look at dictionaries. Why is it that they always expect you to go round and round until you find your answer? Back in school, I remember teachers always telling us that a definition answer should not contain the word we were asked to define. And yet, the first definition you find in a dictionary often gives you no answer at all. Taking an example…1
prudential adj. 1. Arising from or characterized by prudence.
prudence n. 1. The state, quality, or fact of being prudent.
(and finally…)
prudent adj. 1. Wise in handling practical matters; exercising good judgment or common sense.
But I’ve seen worse…
chancery n., pl. -ies. 1. a. A court of chancery. b. The proceedings and practice of a court of chancery; equity.
…
Anywho, I couldn’t find the answer I was looking for until I scrolled half-way down the page.
Aside from dictionaries, call centres piss me off. I was trying to call the Inland Revenue Department (government tax agency) to ask about a little question that took two minutes to resolve. But I was having to hold on to the phone for at least twenty minutes while complaining about it on MSN.
First I get some annoying music, then suddenly it stops and I think “Ooooh it’s coming”, then it switches to some Maori song. That probably happened six or seven times until I got another stop. I heard someone say “Hi” so I said “Hi”, and the robotic, monotonous voice says “… Thanks for holding on the line…” By this time, I felt really stupid I was talking to a robot and the robot babbles on but not too long afterwards, the same robot says “You’re speaking with ******, how may I help you?” It was then natural for me to hesitate and process through my head whether they decided to name their robots or was I finally lucky enough to hear a human being (despite her sounding like a robot). A quick temptation came to me, prodding me to ask her, “Are you a robot?” But I wasn’t rude enough to do so.
It’s this thing with bureaucracy. Everything needs to be in order, I suppose there’s good and bad sides to it, but then sometimes you wait so long for someone to answer your call, and they direct you to a different department, then another department, then another and another. Essentially, you walk in circles, again.
I can’t really blame them though. It’s a common perception to most, if not all of us that professionalism is defined by monotone and rigidity. All the information, Terms of Service and policies in “professional” businesses are written in straight, rigid tone. Do most people even read them?
On a side note, I finally got my Internet bandwidth uncapped!
- Sourced from Answers.com. [↩]