This short, first-person essay uses humor to document why those annoying computer voice response systems are annoying in spite of the best efforts of companies to make them sound human (while saving the company lots of money.) Although the piece is light and chatty, it touches upon a number of serious issues like the replacement of human call-center customer service employees with programmed machines -- and what that says about a future where person-to-person business interactions become the exception rather than the norm.