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Lawrie McFarlane: All of our columnists are busy. Please stay on the line

According to Canada’s interim auditor general, Sylvain Ricard, half of the 16 million Canadians trying to call one of three federal ministries in Ottawa were unable to reach a live human being. I have a message for Ricard: You need to get out more.
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Glen Clark fumed about the proliferation of answering machines when he was B.C. premier. He wanted phones answered by human beings, not robots, Lawrie McFarlane writes. Like many of us, Clark grew up in an era when it was the height of rudeness to pass callers off to an answering machine.

According to Canada’s interim auditor general, Sylvain Ricard, half of the 16 million Canadians trying to call one of three federal ministries in Ottawa were unable to reach a live human being.

I have a message for Ricard: You need to get out more. Finding anyone in the federal government to answer the phone is about as likely as the Vancouver Canucks winning the Stanley Cup. And it doesn’t stop there.

The same goes for universities. Several times when I needed expert help with some research, I called the relevant departments at the University of Victoria or the University of B.C. On more than one occasion, I worked my way through each department’s entire staff directory, and no one picked up the phone.

Or try calling just about any major corporation. Same deal.

What you will get is an automated filibuster. First, there’s the obligatory invitation to visit the website, where all your questions will be answered. Not.

Then follows a minutes-long prologue in which every question you didn’t have is answered. Finally, you get referred to the dial-by-number menu, which you are admonished to pay attention to, as it has recently been changed.

Characteristically, this menu begins with “our location,” then “our hours of business,” then a series of departments, such as human resources and accounting, which if you’re trying to make a purchase, are well down your list of priorities.

Finally, you get the inevitable: “For all other inquiries, press the pound key.” More in hope than in faith, you do so, inspiring the following message: “All of our agents are busy. Please stay on the line and someone will be with you shortly,” which is a stone-cold lie. No, they won’t.

But my deepest feelings are reserved for communications officers, whose job it is to — you know — communicate. Try getting one of them to pick up the phone.

I have to make a couple of exceptions. The media-relations folks with our provincial government are first-rate. So are Island Health’s.

But there’s a broader issue here. It used to be, in times gone by, that you could call a government agency and speak to the person in charge.

I don’t mean the deputy minister or the finance director. Their lives are too crowded. I mean the employee who manages the program you’re interested in.

We have every right to talk with these staffers and ask what’s going on. We’re paying their salary; they’re working for us.

That, however, proved anathema to their political bosses, since we can’t have government employees telling the undiluted truth. Hence the rule, now universal, that public servants may not talk to the public (or media types) without first being routed through a communications officer.

There are exceptions. If you’re calling about a routine matter, such as where’s my income-assistance cheque, you might get through to a real person. But otherwise, crickets.

I remember Glen Clark, when he was premier, fulminating about this nonsense. He wanted phones answered by human beings, not robots. Like many of us, he grew up in an era when it was the height of rudeness to pass callers off to an answering machine.

But even his formidable energy made not a dent.

What has happened, I think, is that attitudes are hardening. Politicians and corporate managers have discovered they can get away with this stuff and not pay a price. After all, when everyone’s doing it, what choice do voters or customers have?

You can’t take your business elsewhere, because the same roadblocks are in place.

Of course, you can always complain. And an automated voice will hear you out in silence.

After that, like the astronaut in the movie 2001, you’ll be cut adrift in space by an admirer of HAL 9000.