I wanna talk to somebody, don’t you?

I bank locally — except that’s not completely true, and it might not be true for you, either. I recently stopped at the bank during lunch, but after I left, the teller had a question and left  a voice message.

So, I called back and entered robo-hell. You’ve been there, too, right? Press or speak “1” to talk to a representative or “5” to hear the options again.

In the old days, I would have called “Agnes” at the local bank, and a 20-second chat would have answered her question, but the old days are long gone.

I left a message with a central service and because “all operators [were] experiencing a higher volume of calls than usual,” would I please stay on the line or leave my phone number and a short message, and they would get back to me.

They. The mysterious “they.”

I stayed on the line. When a human answered, I knew that the customer service representative was not at my bank. This created a layer of rigamarole to identify which branch and which teller, then more holding.

“Are you still holding?” “Yes.” More holding. “Are you still on the line?” “Yes.” Ultimately, Agnes was busy, but she would call back.

This is nothing new, of course. Automatic answering services have been around a long time, and we are all annoyed by them.

I sound like a cranky old person, but don’t you long for the days when a phone call was swift and efficient? Making an appointment at the doctor used to mean you could hear someone flip the pages of a large book while they found you an open slot, lickety-split, and penciled you in.

Answering a business phone is now a thing to be avoided at all costs. I’ve done it in previous jobs, and while it’s never fun to listen to an angry customer, most exchanges aren’t like that.

Experts have determined that worker time is better spent not picking up. But these experts don’t care about customer time, apparently.

I want two things when I make a phone call. I want a seamless process for making an appointment or clearing up a small matter, but I also want to talk to a human being.

The tech bros suppose that these are mutually exclusive endeavors. I insist that they are not. The tech bros have told us that human effort is inefficient. They have an app for that. But I don’t speak “app” and I want to speak to a human being who knows how to help me.

These little human exchanges, however brief, are not nothing. They are a much-needed corrective to a world driven by billionaires who do not have our best interests at heart. All of this technology continues to rend us from human exchange.

We keep reading that there’s a loneliness epidemic in this country. So, the tech bros offer apps that can be your friend. Please resist. Go outside and bump into people if you’re able. In a little town like Storm Lake, you can still do that and not be a creep.

In The Netherlands, the supermarket chain, “Jumbo”, has instituted “slow lanes” or “chat checkouts” so that you can talk with the checker as you pay for your goods. You know, complain about the weather, exchange some pleasantries. See another human face and have an interaction, however small.

Human beings are not assembly-line products with assembly-line needs. Even if I’m calling just to make an appointment, I want to talk to a human from the get-go.

Don’t you?

Joan Zwagerman remembers when her mom answered the business phone, "Hardware Store." No menu needed.