Ill-advised techniques
So as it happens, I turned 27 on Sunday. As I was drinking my first cup of coffee around 9:45am, I got an automated phone call. This is not unusual - we get a lot of robocalls from some fucking carpet installation company, and I’m also on a bunch of charity and museum call lists. (Thanks, NPR!) But as it happens, this particular robot lady claimed to be representing a dentist, who wanted to wish me a happy birthday. She actually sang the happy birthday song. The robot lady did.
The weirdest part is that it wasn’t even from my dentist, a lovely person who would never robocall me at coffee o’clock on a weekend morning. No, this was from a guy I went to exactly once, when I urgently needed to replace a lost filling about two years ago. I never went back to him because he was the kind of dick who interprets “I am raising my left hand repeatedly to indicate that I am actually not numb at all and wish you would stop drilling” as “I would like you to comment briefly on my probable pain and then just keep going.” And now I am getting automated birthday calls from him, I guess. So there’s that.
Happy Birthday, and welcome to the 21st Century of auto-intrusion and indecent marketing tactics! :^p The whole situation feels like a mix between the Jetsons and A.I.
Hope you kicked the bastard in the shin or belittled him with the evil eye. Someone shouldn’t need to flail to get the obvious point across.
My apologies, ma’am, for having missed your birthday entirely. I trust that your birthday was indeed a happy one, that you are doing well, and that you will take this opportunity to knee this orthodontical lout where right it counts and then ask him if he needs some Novocaine. Have a nice day!