Page 2: Call back … never

Nobody answers the phone anymore, and not just calls from journalists. It’s a way to save money—as in the case of the Mono County Superior Court, which has no one manning the phones because it can’t afford it. But it’s getting ridiculous.

I tried contacting the Department of Justice using three different numbers, all of which went to the same robo-answering machine with the same message over and over, “Please go to our website at h, t, t, p colon, forward slash, forward slash ….” It took five minutes to wade through the list of contacts and the spelling out of the website ad nauseum, only to get another answering machine. I ended up calling just any random person on the list to get ahold of a public information officer. Yes, the officer had a phone.

OHL USA who was recently awarded a $200 million contract for work on the Owens Dry Lake (see more on this next week), but provides no contact information on its website except a generic email address and the number for the company’s headquarters in New York. Sometimes the company answers emails quickly, but I recently received a call back a week after I sent an email. The automated message provides a list of dozens of its employees, but does not say who these people are or what they do. When I dialed zero for the operator, the robot voice said the mailbox was full and it hung up on me.

I can understand the need to save money and that the majority of phone calls are probably complaints, because if they can’t afford to have someone answer the phones they probably don’t have a very good product or they would be able to afford a receptionist to field calls.

It stinks of not caring about customers and clients. It comes across as a hurdle—maybe too much hassle and the caller will eventually give up.

I’ve made calls to public information officers who tell me to just lift stuff from their website or to go to the website first and if there’s any questions to call back. Again these corporations and businesses assume the caller is oblivious and ignorant, and I’m sure some of them are. A refrigerator repair man whose first question is, “Is it plugged in?” may be helpful for some complainers, but for the majority of us, this kind of treatment is just insulting.

Also from Bodine’s desk …

Mono County Supervisors elected new Chairs and pro-tem positons at the Board’s first meeting of 2016 on Jan. 5. Supervisor Tim Alpers nominated Supervisor Fred Stump as Board Chair, and Supervisor Tim Fesko seconded.

Stump said 2016 brings with it some optimism and progress. In the larger picture, he said, “We need to be careful in how we conduct ourselves and what we commit to.” There have been rumors that this maybe Stump’s last year. “Not sure if this will be my last year or not, but if it is this will make a nice memory to take with me.”

Alpers nominated Supervisor Stacy Corless as Vice Chair and Supervisor Larry Johnston was elected Board Chair pro-tem. Alpers, Stump and Fesko are up for re-election this year.