So I have been helping my wife with some Disney related tickets, passes, genie+ arrangements for a crew of people she is taking to one of the parks. Some technical difficulties have arrived which is required me to call in to talk to a cast member. My hold time has been pretty long, enough to listen to the entire meddle of Disney song shorts from all the best animations exactly twice. I finally do get routed to a young woman, who is obviously working from home. She has excellent noise cancellation headsets, but there is a distinct sound in the background that can only come from “home sounds.” She has a different name when I talk to her, but after the fourth time calling in and waiting for about an hour, I realize that this is the same person. Same voice, same quirky response to my dry sense of humor. We get the issue resolved and speed along our merry way to the survey at the end.
I note that she is perfectly designed for me and my specific need. I note that she is very quick to retrieve data, and then I notice that the sounds in the background are the same, exactly the same. Hmm. Is this my personally assigned cast member? Is she the only one taking phone calls, which is why the hold time is so long, or perhaps she is the only one taking calls for me and / or people in my demographic. Is the routing algorithms that crazy smart?
Then I realized that this bubbly sweet woman on the other end of the line may not be real at all, or maybe translating keyboard input from a remote operator into an overlay that interprets the messages in a natural, easy, and fun voice. Not to far fetch as all of us live in a markup language world anyway. Then I realize that Tom Cruise could have died 5 years ago and even as we watch Top Gun, we still do not know it. Queue green screen interview with Oprah. Everyone is a believer.
Tom Cruise, may he live forever. Tina or Angela, or Maria, may she forever answer my Disney Support calls.
Guy