Now it is a familiar element of service. Calling you to your desired phone number, and a cute female voice instructs you on what buttons you need to press to get finally to the information you need.
And it began in our Palestine thirty years ago. In the early 80s brought a caring dad their kids to Moscow for the winter holidays. Relatives who have stopped visiting, relax yourself slid away from the capital, leaving the keys relatives.
Sleep off, provident father decided the next day to order tickets home and dialed the number. When you call, heard a mechanical voice, "You've reached the desk of the order of railway tickets. In order to better serve our office moved to automated receiving orders from the population. Please briefly and accurately answer each question after the word "answer".
And then a continuous stream of mass is very relevant questions - detailed address, name, date, train number and so on. About the fifth question dad Igor buksonul. A record went forward. He scored again. Phoned. Got to the tenth question again strata. Psihanul. Hung up. He sat and thought. To kill time for a trip for tickets did not want at all. This is the first one. And second - this awkward feeling sensations own provincialism. As well - Muscovites can, and I'm not?
And Igor was a man of thorough. So he phoned again and all questions taped. Then he wrote down the answers to them. Once again dials in the Booking Office, concise answers to all questions.
Filled with legitimate pride, showing off his wife. And five minutes later the call sounds. Igor picks up the phone. Call from the same offices and say that they are already the fourth day of testing a new "automated" system. And he was the first who managed to answer all the questions. And after a pause, wonder how he managed to do it.