Future jobs - what job would YOU like?

It has often been said that in a few years time a whole pile of jobs will exist that don’t exist today.  The only thing that changes is the number.  So I thought it might be worth looking at what jobs exist today that weren’t around a few years ago. 

It seems that a lot of them have to do with changing technology.  We didn’t have an iPhone maintenance guy 2 years ago.  There was nobody around to fix ‘twitter’.  We didn’t need employment agencies for out-of-work financial analysts! 

As I was looking through the list I wondered, which of those ‘new’ jobs would I like to have a go at. 

Then it hit me – I would love to be the guy that sets up the telephone numbers.  No – not the numbers you dial to get Aunty Betty on the phone and wish her happy birthday.  I want to be the guy that sets up that whole list of numbers that you have to press AFTER you have made the phone call! 

You know the story.  You have to start with the phrase, “Please listen carefully to the whole menu as numbers may have changed since your last call”.  Press 1 for sales, press 2 for service, press 3 for technical support, press 4 for complaints, press 5 to speak to a customer service operative and press 8 to hear the menu again.  If it were me I’d use bigger numbers and have longer lists, however… 

Then you get to choose from the ‘secondary menu’ – I know that’s what it’s called cos I looked it up!  The secondary menu is where the ‘choose a number’ technician could really go to town. 

Imagine you’ve just pressed 2 for service; the options are now endless...!  If your enquiry is about the model 347CDR-34 press 1, if your product was purchased after April 2008 press 2, if you know the extension number of the person you wish to speak to press 3 followed by the 7 digit extension number followed by the hash key, if you are phoning from Australia press 6, if your call is being routed through the Torsion Phase Eliminator, press 7, if you wish to return to the main menu press 9 otherwise stay on the line.  If you like the music press 4, if you would like to order the CD press 5 provided that you have your credit card number entered into the pre-selection audiophile receptor channel. 

Then we have the tertiary number choice menu – but you get the picture by now… 

The extra clever part of the system actually would involve a system of customer service operatives.  We would have to call them that because we wouldn’t be able to find any humans.

 I decided to program the system so that on a random keypunch the customers would find themselves speaking to the CSO (Acronyms are important here – we really need to create some more). 

Regardless of progress, the CSO would be supplied with a series of simple key phrases like “I need your help”, or “This item doesn’t work properly” or even “I’m really getting desperate…”  Whenever the CSO hears these words from the customer they are instructed to pass the customer on to another CSO, who is equally incapable of solving the problem, but who may succeed in getting the customer to hang up. 

Then comes the cruncher – I love this bit!  After I’ve set it up so that the customer has to go through AT LEAST the three levels and can only do so successfully by going back twice, (that’s a minimum of 14 keystrokes, 3 CSOs and no progress towards a solution) I would program the system so that every number the customer hits on the fourth time around the system will automatically take them back to level 1 – that’s it, the main menu!  Brilliant! I could have the silly customers going round and round in circles for hours!

 I resolved to learn how to do the programming and look for a job as a ‘choose a number’ technician, only I would turn out to be the maverick, wreaking havoc and confusion on the customer and causing an endless stream of customer complaints. 

It was then that the bottom fell out of my World.  I rang my bank, only to discover that they had already got the system in place.  The maverick role had been taken…