Monotonous + rigid = professional?
19 August 2007, 2:34 pm. View comments. Filed under Miscellaneous, Rants.
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...
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.- sourced from Answers.com
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.
...- sourced from Answers.com
Anyhow, 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!
15 Comments »
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The monotonous and rigid thing is right... I've done so many law readings that bore me to death because of the way it's written. Mind you, the subject matter can be really interesting, but it's difficult wading through people trying to sound as professional as they can.
I kinda find that with some online sites too. What grabs my attention a lot more these days is not design (though that can help) but if there is in big writing, some sort of quirky and unexpected salutation or expression of the personality of the site owner... I'd definitely stay to read some more. -
I can't agree with you enough on this. Companies think that talking having support assistants that talk like androids is professional. I get turned off when I see people like that. I'd much rather have a company that has friendly support that laughs at my jokes.
Another thing that irritates me is support that's in India. I have nothing against the Indians, it's just, I have a hard time understand them. My brother asked me to contact his web host, and their phone lines were monitored by people in India. I spent an hour or so trying to get my point across to them, and in the end, they still didn't understand. I gez me Englizh iz not gewd.
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Arrrrgh, Inland Revenue annoys the hell out of me - I couldnt get paid for my first job because it took them aaaaaaaages to process, then mail me my IRD number :S. But at least you had MSN to complain on whilst holding the line - when we used to be stuck on telecom, the internet wouldn't work and I had to hold for 1hour+ for them to keep switching between departments, grrr.
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Yeah, I remember my teachers telling me the exact same thing - about not using the word/variation of the word when you're trying to explain it. Hehe.
Businesses these days - it all comes down to one word. Profit. It's just cheaper to have robots and have many labourious (is there such word?) tasks automated. That's what you get with capitalism. -
Your using wordpress right? tehehe
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i cant stand voice automated services. and i swear everybody is switching over to that crap. its soo annoying. having to press this and say that. its stupid.
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@Kirby: What? No I'm not actually...
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Gah, I hate it when the dictionary does that. A thesaurus can be way more helpful, in that case.
@ Alex - Bleh, I'm Indian and I even have a hard time understanding them. -
I wanted to know if your using wordpress XD
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@Kirby: No, Rilla doesn't use WordPress. She coded this herself. She is quite proud of it. And she is deserving of that pride for the coding.
Call centers are the pits. I agree with you Rilla. I hate them. I usually stick the phone on speaker and then go about my business while trying to ignore the phone and yelling "I am still here waiting" about every three minutes until someone yells back at me.
As for the dictionaries, it always makes me laugh to see how you always go around in circles when defining a word. -
@Amanda: What you couldn't get paid for your first job? Just because you didn't have your IRD number? Why did you still work then?
Lol @Hev. Yeah I'm proud enough.
I did try to copy a lot of the things from WordPress though, like the URL format especially. But you ignore the phone? My friend starts ranting to the robots. -
wow, this coding must of took forever!
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test
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test again
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Oh man I hate those automatic phone messages. By the time I talk to an actual human being I'm fuming!