Poem

Customer service calls drive me crazy – but I’ve found a solution

Poet and artist Frieda Hughes explains how staring at sheep became a balm for a weary soul beaten down by endless AI and chatbot interactions

Sunday 25 August 2024 10:36 EDT
(Frieda Hughes)

Microsoft have no helpine for a UK 365 disaster.

Customer services have been discontinued from overuse.

The Chatbot does not understand my question.

The question box does not understand my language.

How much life have I got left to research answers to issues

That customer services no longer deliver, for any company I use?

I have twenty years left, or thirty-one. Maybe sixteen, perhaps ten.

We do not know when our yacht will overturn in a waterspout,

Or when our ship will come in bringing only the end.

I want to charge them for the accumulating hours it takes

To find answers without access to human assistance.

Their complacent thievery reduces me to nothing they value.

My escape finds sheep, chewing down lengths of chlorophyll,

Uncaring if the power goes down or Microsoft melts.

Their woolly backsides amble across Horseshoe Pass hills

Where I park my motorbike among many at the Ponderosa Café

To watch the mountain wind comb the flowering gorse.

Between me and the sheep there is only time and grass.

And when the coffee machine misses its vital ingredients,

The manager simply pours me another, smiles, and moves on.

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