Ms. H. was working from home and was unable to work.

Your internet went on strike, the router blinked.

After using her cell phone to google for possible solutions and trying them out (including rebooting the router for half an hour), she was forced to call her telephone company's hotline.

Although she already had bad suspicions.

Nadine Bos

Editor in business, responsible for "Career and Opportunity".

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The bot on the other end of the line first asked her to speak her phone number on the tape.

Ms. H. obeyed, but was not understood.

She entered the number on the keyboard and was then asked to choose between various options such as "accounting", "new connection" or "malfunction".

She chose Disturbance.

When the bot asked her to verbalize what kind of disorder was present, Ms. H. failed again.

"Internet doesn't work" he understood just as little as "router blinks".

As she pondered what else to say, the bot said something like, "You must specify a disorder type." And when she didn't do it right away, the bot ended the call.

Ms H. tried again.

After endlessly wandering around in different channels, she started nagging at the bot.

"You stupid machine." -"You want to be artificially intelligent, but you're artificially stupid." Briefly she wondered if she had agreed at the beginning that the conversation would be "recorded for training purposes".

Then she continued to grumble.

"Finally give me a real customer advisor." To her surprise, the bot responded promptly: "You will be connected to a customer advisor." It followed: music.

When Ms. H. already had a catchy tune, a pleasantly human voice answered.

Unfortunately Ms. H. was still on 180. "I've been on the phone with your stupid artificial intelligence for three quarters of an hour," she snapped at the call center man.

"I have to WORK!

You have to give this nonsense bot a warning.

Or fire them straight away – without notice!” The customer advisor replied politely: “Unfortunately, I can't help you with this.” And hung up.

In the Nine to Five column, different authors write about curiosities from everyday life in the office and university.