A look behind the curtain
For anyone who has ever been trapped in the labyrinth of a modern telephone system, AKA the auto attendant function, I feel your pain. And after a full day of training, I now understand how to make things worse. Not better.
We’ve installed a brand new telephone network at the office. The jump from PBX to VOIP promises to revolutionize our lives. Change is unavoidable, and we do have twenty-five plus sites and close to a thousand employees on the provide list. Our old systems were showing their age, so we retired the analog and jumped into the digital pond. And like gooey icing on the cake, we finally have seven layers of menus to offer the caller: take that, Dante.
As a caller, I’ve faced the drama of voicemail. As a technician, it was fair that I see the “man behind the curtain”.
It’s all logic. Just like a coin sorter, or someone falling through the branches of a tree. You call, you push buttons, you either end up somewhere or you start all over again. The Boolean foundation is sound. With enough options, and enough time to debug, a full-featured phone system will get a caller to the desired destination (or the caller will drop from fatigue). I jest, but lightly.
After a full day of training, I now know that I will tread cautiously in the miasma of configuration menus. I can cause systemic failure. I don’t want to do that. If I feel like I’m lost, I probably am. I should then tiptoe quietly away from the console and hope that nobody else notices.
