I found this in my old drafts folder, no idea what I never posted it, but I’ll go into it and post it now.

You might have seen this commercial. The guy is on the phone trying to talk to an agent for some bank. He has to say his password, then repeat it, then say yes, then say no… so on and so forth. His kitchen catches on fire, his broom catches on fire and when he finally gets through an agent, he loses reception.Well, the point of the commercial is that with Citibank (Citigroup) all you have to do is press 0 to talk to an agent. However, this does not take into effect why you have to go through various prompts before speaking to an agent. While pressing 0 is great, it will not make your life easier.

Now, some of you know that I work with phone systems for a leaving. The “in”-famous I’ll make your toaster answer calls while making toast at the same time quote, but I digress. The reason it feels that some business will make you jump through hoops before talking to an agent is simple. Money. The most expense investment a corporation has is and will continue to be its staff. A person making minimum wage answering phones will be more expensive than some of the top of the line servers out now. So, why does that matter? Having the phone system handle your call and hopefully answer your question or frustrate you enough to hang up, allows the company minimize the need for staffing. Bottom line is the more you talk to a computer and the less you talk to a person, the more money a corporate makes.

Now, there are some very useful IVR systems out there and they do serve a purpose, however they have to be carefully planned and constantly updated. So remember me next time you press 0 for an agent and it doesn’t work, I usually disable that feature :-).

~david

I just had two very separate dreams. In the first I had found out that my little sister had been given up to another family and was living in another city. I had traveled to see her and ensure that she was safe. She was.

In my other dream I was back in Dr. Berger

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/12/08/chicago.airplane/index.html

I should be at this airport in about 12 hours. It is snowing hard! I had to dig my car out.

Ho ho ho.

~david macias

So, it seems that I might be 100% Mexican after all. For some weird reason I’ve been listening to old Mexican music. A mixture of ballads and country in Spanish called Rancheras (Ranch music). Music from such artist as Pedro Infante, Pedro Negrete, and Vicente Fernandez, perhaps the American equivalents to Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Dean Martin.

Now, there seems to be something soothing about this music, times were different out in the ranch… The term "macho" was used without the bat of an eye. These artists embodied a lot of the Mexican stereotypes that seem to still linger in today’s society. They were gun slinging drunkards always looking to make a conquest. However, regardless of the debauchery; family, friendship, and true love were their primary purpose in life.

A couple of songs that stand out in particular and a quick short translation:

Jorge Negrete y Pedro Infante

So, is touchups one word or two?

Anyway, finally got around to taking care of some security fixes that were needed. Also, updated the Spamx plugin which makes getting rid of all those beautiful spam comments a breeze.

Enjoy,

~david macias