I have just returned home from a two week work trip. As part of that trip I spent two nights at the Grand Hyatt in Seattle. It was a nice hotel in a good location, but apparently they now have an AI agent, or “virtual assistant” answering the phone.

I got a good laugh out of it, although it took four calls for me to reach a human.

While I was on this trip I realized that I left my COVID/Flu test kit at home. No worries, I can simply order one from Amazon. I did and had it shipped to the hotel.

Unfortunately, I didn’t notice that the Amazon app then updated my default shipping address to be the hotel. When I needed to reorder my green Kool-Aid (and the flavor is “green”, not “lemon-lime” as no lemons or limes have ever tasted like this) I didn’t realize it would be delivered to Seattle and not my home in North Carolina, and it took me a second to realize why, when I got the “it’s been delivered” notice, it wasn’t here.

No biggie. I have friends in Seattle and one of them can swing buy and get it and then return the package for me. I just need to let the hotel know about it.

This is where the fun begins.

I called the hotel and after two rings a very cheery male voice says “Hello! I am a virtual assistant. How can I help you today?”

Now as much as I would like to purposely mess with tech like this, I always take my first shot in good faith. So I said “I need to speak to someone at the front desk”. As expected, the assistant further asked me why, so I said “I need to talk about a mis-delivered package”.

“Okay! Our Business Center is open from [blah blah blah], and we have Wifi! Was this helpful?”

I replied “no” and was met with “Okay! Goodbye!” [click].

Heh.

Try number two, same routine, but when asked why I was calling I said “I found a rat in my sandwich”.

That got me transferred to Security, who tried to send me back to the Front Desk but the call never completed.

Try three, I went with “I lost my room key”. That got me transferred to Lost and Found, who didn’t answer since it is 05:30 local time.

My lovely spouse (I married well), suggested I try “I need to check-in”. That was the fourth try and went much better.

Me: “I need to check-in.”

VA: “Check-in time is 4pm. Do you need early check-in?”

Me: “Yes”

VA: “The best way to manage your reservation is through the Hyatt app. Is that something you want to do?”

Me: “No”

VA: “Okay. I will transfer you to someone who can help.”

I was then connected to a very friendly person who said I needed to talk with the Front Office Manager, Lee (or perhaps Leigh). Call back after 07:30.

While I haven’t figured out the optimal prompt to get to a human, I will call back in a few hours and try again.

As someone recently unemployed, I find that my time doesn’t have the same urgency as it used to, so I honestly found this process amusing. It is also interesting to note how we seem to have circled back from those early days of voice response systems where you had to “Press 1 for A, press 2 for B” etc.

I used to watch a television show called “Married … with Children” where the main character was a man named Al Bundy. They did a bit where Bundy was trying to get a part for his Dodge, and the decision tree went on for hours. He dutifully pressed the keys on his phone until after the last press, the automated voice went “Hello Al Bundy!”.

Now instead of pressing keys we can burn a few hundred tokens to do the same thing to the same effect but using our voice instead of a phone keypad. This is called “progress”.