Amelia the Phone Operator
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Amelia the Phone Operator
More than the threatening sense of silence and loneliness at two o'clock in the morning, there is always the threat of extreme hunger as well. For some reason, hunger almost always strikes you when you are just about to go to bed, and you are too lazy to drag yourself down to your car and then drive to the nearest fast food joint to grab a bite. The distance from your bed to the front door, from the front door to the car, from the car to the fast food joint and then back again is just too far for you to imagine at that time of the night. So you mentally come up with a list of names, friends that might join you for a quick bite at that time of the night, but they cannot be bothered about you either. Two o'clock is the worst, everything strikes you at that time of the night, the feeling is excruciating. Kerri had the same problem last night, the sudden urge to eat something was controlling even her ability to type properly over MSN. OK, it wasn't that bad, but I'm sure if she didn't give McDonald's a call last night, it would have been the eventual result of her starvation. I had my hunger curbed by a chocolate muffin, but she had quite a generous serving of french fries last night at two - all thanks to the kind people of McDonald's Delivery.
More than the threatening sense of silence and loneliness at two o'clock in the morning, there is always the threat of extreme hunger as well. For some reason, hunger almost always strikes you when you are just about to go to bed, and you are too lazy to drag yourself down to your car and then drive to the nearest fast food joint to grab a bite. The distance from your bed to the front door, from the front door to the car, from the car to the fast food joint and then back again is just too far for you to imagine at that time of the night. So you mentally come up with a list of names, friends that might join you for a quick bite at that time of the night, but they cannot be bothered about you either. Two o'clock is the worst, everything strikes you at that time of the night, the feeling is excruciating. Kerri had the same problem last night, the sudden urge to eat something was controlling even her ability to type properly over MSN. OK, it wasn't that bad, but I'm sure if she didn't give McDonald's a call last night, it would have been the eventual result of her starvation. I had my hunger curbed by a chocolate muffin, but she had quite a generous serving of french fries last night at two - all thanks to the kind people of McDonald's Delivery.
McDonald's 24 hour delivery opened up new doors to the world of lazy people. In the past, lazy people had to walk to their cars to drive to the nearest joint. Now they can stay at home and wait for the food to be served, even if it is only going to be a cup of chocolate fudge. It changed the way we eat things, and I do consider it a gift of some sort. Another thing I loved about the service is probably the fact that we had to call them to place our orders in the past, though that is not the case now any longer. For a few weeks now, they have been promoting the online ordering website, which meant that we won't even need to pick up our phones now, every ounce of energy needed to order a meal rests upon the tip of your right index finger - isn't that amazing? At the same time, however, I feel that it took away that special touch of humanity when you give somebody a phone call, there is just something so special about phone calls, to hear somebody's voice through a plastic receiver shaped like a squarish banana.
I was reading an article about technology taking over the world the other day, a far-fetched thought unless you believe in the whole Terminator franchise, thing. Laser discs came and replaced VHS cassettes, then VCDs came to take over that one, then came DVDs and then later HD-DVDs and Blue-ray, not to mention a few formats lost in between. The likes of the Hindenburg has been replaced by planes, cruise ships have taken over the likes of steam engines, and chunky old cellphones have been taken over by cellphones thinner than our fingers and some smaller than our palms. It is true that technology rapidly changed the world in the past century or so, but some things just cannot be taken away - ever. You cannot design a robot or a certain CD-ROM for the class and expect it to take over the job of a teacher, nor can you design robots to fight firing effectively in the future. Some things can only be done in proper, by humans. Picking up the phone, talking to somebody else, that's something only humans can do best, too.
This is something worthy of an entry on PostSecret.com, but there is always that little sense of excitement while calling a phone operator. It doesn't matter if I am calling in regarding some internet connection problems, cellphone issues, or some food delivery services. It's always nice to know that somebody is going to pick up the phone on the other end of the receiver to answer your questions, somehow. That was until Starhub decided to put the majority of their phone calls through to a monotonous pre-recorded voice, the voice of a woman that cannot sound less interested about your problems. You'd think that after pressing a million numbers on the dial, they'd transfer you to an actual human with a sweet voice, but I guess such things only happen in porn movies nowadays. Soon, McDonald's Delivery is going to be completely taken over by the website as well, and we will find ourselves rid of that human touch, which also means that I'd never be able to meet someone like Amelia anymore.
There was a time, probably a year or two ago, when something in my cellphone decided to malfunction. No messages were getting in, and no messages were going on. Online, a bunch of my friends started complaining about how I was ignoring their messaged, and that was when I realized that there was a serious problem at hand that needed my attention. So I searched for a few phone numbers, dialed them up on my phone, and I was connected through to a phone operator working at Singtel. I remember the ruffling of the phone cord on the other end of the line before the person actually picked up the phone, and then the person introduced herself over the phone, simply as "Amelia". She had a sweet voice, at least for a phone operator, and she just sounded as if she was genuinely happy that you called. So I told her about my problem, and she told me about the various possibilities we were looking at.
I forgot the various possibilities, but most of them didn't work very well. She sounded as if she was new on the job, because every remedy she came up with took about five minutes, as if she was looking through a user's manual while trying to entertain me over the phone. She kept apologizing while I waited, but I thought she was just being overly anxious about me waiting on this side of the line. I had all the time in the world, and it's not like I had the urge to hang up anytime soon either - everybody loves a lovely voice. It was rather amusing how she tried to start a conversation while she searched for a remedy, so I entertained her as well by going along with the act. Before we knew it, we were chatting on the phone instead of trying to solve the problem on my phone. I had the image of the floor manager or something peeking over the partition and catching her talking on the phone instead of serving other customers, which was why I asked if I was going to get her into any trouble. "Oh, no troubles!" I remember her saying. "This is a temporary thing anyway, don't really like this job."
She then asked me to change the settings in my phone and try again, and I followed through the steps and finished her instructions. But I needed somebody to test the phone out, and Amelia was kind enough to give me her number to try if it was working. I sent some random gibberish to her, and she was nice enough to reply to that message - how weird. We talked a little bit more before hanging up, and I thought that was probably the best conversation I ever had with a stranger - ever.
I was telling that story to Kerri last night, and she asked if we ever contacted each other again. She never did, and I never tried either. I think it'd seem weird somehow, like the perfect plot for a perfect horror movie, of some perverted serial killer looking for his next pray by calling up phone companies and asking for phone numbers. I didn't want to be seen as that kind of person, which was probably why I never attempted to call her back, and I am sure I never really left a deep impression on her either. I was just another customer, another statistic on her daily quota, perhaps. Still, I feel that these are the kind of things automated pre-recorded voices can never take over, these nice conversations with strangers over the phone, it's priceless really. I suppose, this is the best way to go about things, I am sure that if I actually tried to call Amelia in the days that followed and met her in real life, I would have been terribly disappointed somehow. Humans have the ability to romanticize everything, and things just do not turn out as we'd hope it to be - ever. So it is probably the best that it ended with the phone call, to have it preserved in a beautiful memory like that, like a floating iceberg inside my mind.
I don't suppose it is likely but, if your name is Amelia and you worked for Singtel last year or the year before the last, my name is Will. Or I might have introduced myself as Weilien, or Mr. Chin, whatever. You don't remember me, but I remember you very well. If you are reading this, then you've found me.
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on Thursday, March 27, 2008 at 2:12 AM.
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