If there ever was a “coming of age” moment for my robot, this was the call. I should also say that, as annoying as telemarketers are for residences, the cold caller is the business equivalent. Businesses receive dozens of calls per day. Each department receives them and the receptionist may field hundreds for “the person in charge of printers” etc. Many of these calls go to the help desk. This call is one of those. I don’t think he knew what business he called – he never says it during the call. This one came to the main number for “the person in charge of your servers”. So the receptionist transferred him to the helpdesk, and the helpdesk transferred him to my robot. Thank you helpdesk.

Now, this is early in the life of the robot. I had just added the “bee” banter to augment the four “inane” statements. I thought sure this version would drive callers to madness and there would be no way anyone would get all the way through. Keep in mind – my own testing required a lot of “blah blah” to get through several minutes and it was hard to get through all the way. But I never thought a real caller would get all the way through. This was the first to do it. I mean, a bee? really?

And this was to a business! As you listen to this call, keep in mind he called a business! And he is not fazed at all. If you listen carefully after one particular awkward silence, I think you can hear his supervisor giggle. I also think he was new at this. Quite a training day for him.

So the robot did extremely well and I was very proud of it. When he gives his phone number it grunted at all the right places. When the conversation wound down, it drew him back in. And when it ran out of things to say, the timing was perfect.