After a week of dealing with service calls to my internet company and having to go to many more stores than usual, I suspect there’s a coordinated campaign to prevent humans from talking to each other.

I’m not entirely kidding. Have you noticed, especially since the “pandemic,” that it’s becoming the new-normal to be stopped from speaking to other people? We’re now directed to “interface” with machines. It happens on the phone, at gas stations, at grocery stores, at restaurants.

There’s something so off about walking up to the register while one lone employee stands in front of the cigarette case and monitors you while you do his job.

Have you been handed a piece of paper with a QR code on it when you’re seated at a restaurant and told to “scan this for the menu”? Have you been told (not “asked”) to scan your own groceries, bag them, and punch your payment into the register?

How about the robotic phone tree lady that prevents you from speaking to a person at the gas company, the bank, or any other business you call?

Phoning it in

People have been complaining about the decline in customer service since at least as far back as the 1980s. The worst of it was the then-recently invented phone tree.

Phone trees have always been irritating, but they’re out of control now: There is no human staffed department to which you can be directed. Worse, companies deliberately restrict the subjects you can “ask” about by leaving them off the menu options, and the systems hang up on you if you try to get a human agent.

It’s getting infinitely worse with the overnight adoption of shiny, glittery-new AI technology. In the past month, I finally stopped doing business with my old internet company — a huge multinational company that you have heard of and not in fond terms — because it has programmed its AI “customer service rep” to blatantly refuse to connect customers with a human.

Call waiting (and waiting)

Here’s how these online chats go:

AI agent: Please choose from billing, technical support, or new sales.

Me: Need more options. Need agent.

AI: Please choose from billing, technical support, or new sales.

Me: Agent.

AI: I’m sorry, please choose from ...

Me: Agent! I need an agent! My question is not listed!

AI: I’m sorry, but I cannot connect you to an agent until you follow the suggested steps above. Goodbye.

And then the chat window closes, or the call disconnects.

Yes, I’m serious. The robots now brazenly hang up on you if you don’t obey their commands. How did customers suddenly end up having to take orders from company devices instead of the other way around?

Inconvenience store

It’s no better in person, and I’m sorry to say that human behavior is just as bad as robotic misconduct. This week, I needed a five-gallon jug of kerosene. I heat and light my home in cold weather with restored antique kerosene lamps. These aren’t the small "Little House on the Prairie" oil lamps you’re thinking of; they’re big thirsty bad boys that put out major light and heat.

So I go to the farm store, where they sell kerosene in large jugs at 40% less than other stores. When I walk over to the shelf, there’s nothing there. Damn. Now, I have to weigh whether or not to talk to a staff member.

Fifteen years ago, this wasn’t a hard decision — in fact, it wasn’t a decision at all. But today? The most common response I get from store staff when asking for help is a facial expression that communicates irritation and an attitude meant to express, “You, customer, are inconveniencing me.”

It’s most pronounced in anyone under 40, as Millennials and Gen Zers were not taught things like “doing your job” or “not being awful to the people who pay your wage through their customers.”

I chance it and ask the frazzled 22-year-old at the register. He won’t make eye contact with me, of course. “Hi there. I see that the kerosene isn’t in its usual spot. Could you please tell me if you have it in stock, or when you will have it in stock again?”

Without looking at me, he replies, “I don’t know.” What am I supposed to say to this? Wouldn’t you take that as another way of saying, “I’m not going to answer your question, and I want you to go away?”

So I say, “Right. Could you please tell me who might know or how I will be able to find out whether I will be able to buy kerosene here and when that might be?”

Annoyed, the cashier makes an exasperated noise and says, “They don’t tell us what’s coming on the truck. All I know is that it comes on Tuesdays and Thursdays — check back then.”

When I worked retail, had my boss observed me speak to a patron like this, I would have been fired on the spot.

No talking

My last stop on this outing is to grab some lunch. There’s a brand-new gas station/convenience store/truck stop that just opened two miles up the road from where I live in Vermont. It’s sort of like a northern version of the famous Bucc-ee’s truck stop “malls” you see in the South. You can get hot and cold food, soft drinks, beer, liquor, small electronics accessories, motor oil, and toys to keep the kids quiet.

Sadly, “make the customer do the store’s job” has metastasized to the corner store, too.

This place is all self-checkout. There’s something so off about walking up to the register, while one lone employee stands in front of the cigarette case and monitors you while you do his job. There’s no etiquette for it. The employees don’t greet you, leaving you wondering if they’re afraid you’ll ask them to do something if they signal that they’re aware of your presence.

I am prepared for that. I am not prepared for having to do the same thing for a sandwich.

I stand at the deli counter for about two minutes, while two employees stand behind the counter 20 feet away chatting with each other as if I were not there. Then, it dawns on me. There is that bank of iPads blazing out saturated color. I, the customer, am forced to punch a touchscreen on the machine to put in my order. There is to be no talking to other humans.

The device has every annoyance, starting with the fact that the customer is forced to learn a new, company-bespoke set of “buttons” and software, adding frustration and time to what ought to be a simple request.

Employees won’t talk to you, of course, even when they know you’re having trouble. After finally (I think) placing my order, dramatic pipe organ music starts blaring from a hidden speaker. It’s playing a plagal cadence, the part at the end of a church hymn that goes “aaaaa-men.” Apparently, this signals that one’s order has been sent to St. Peter and will be delivered shortly.

The younger of the two counter staffers looks at me briefly while the fanfare echoes against the tile walls. I say, “Am I allowed to talk to you?”

She just stares at me.