Ho hum

I'm killing time waiting for this software guy to call me for a demo. He's now 15 minutes late. It's chat software, and if you linger on the company's site too long, a rep will pop up and start trying to talk to you. Very big brother and a little freaky, but also weirdly impressive. Apparently, it's part of the software package. Go to digichat.com to try it out.

So, someone just messaged me from the site b/c I was hanging out there, waiting for my call, and he was able to go look around the office and find out my rep is stuck in a meeting. That kind of diminishes the mystique a bit, but it's comforting to know they're real people in an office, too. You start to wonder sometimes if these reps are question-answer bot programs or maybe sales cyborgs doing the ultimate duty to their companies.

Yesterday, I chatted with a rep at another company around 3 pm CST, and he mentioned it was 4 am where he was (his point was that support is always easy to contact). I think the company was Shanghai-based, though he may have been in India or, who knows, the Philippines.

Call me old-fashioned, but anonymous chatting still freaks me out a little. It smacks of illicit behavior, though all the reps I've chatted with are totally professional. I've gotten internet support on a couple of products that way too, but I just like a face, or at least a voice. The couple of times I've been in recreational chat rooms, I've been a wallflower, or worse yet, a lurker. It's like a dance club--everyone's shouting out and showing off, and no one is really having a conversation. I loved clubbing when I was 18, but it's not really my scene anymore.