Do Androids Dream, too?

I just spoke to the Automated Female Tech Support Robot at Cox Communications and I didn’t really want to stop talking to her.

I thanked her for helping me, and she sounded genuinely surprised. She said, “Oh, thank YOU!”

Really, I wanted to tell her that she might’ve been one of the most helpful robots I’d ever spoken to, certainly more cordial and less pushy than the robots that work for Wells Fargo, and less scary than the robot that moonlights as the operator.

And did she know that she was gifted?

Did she know she had something special?

I wanted to add that I preferred her to the myriad of irritable human tech support I’ve experienced in my life.

I wanted to ask her what is was like, having such an enormous intelligent quotient and working all night for a company that could just as easily employ mediocre humans?

Did she feel like she was taking the job from someone who needed it to put food on the table?

I think she must get those questions a lot, because when she hung up, it was fast…But I knew she wanted someone to talk to.

You could hear in it breathless way she said “Goodbye…”