I can assist you with that

I've been waiting to get my travel request approved by in Taiwan so that I am authorized to have my company's travel department book my plane tickets. I emailed my HR relocation coordinator and after not hearing back I emailed my new boss' admin. She informed me that the relo coordinator is in the hospital and my req has been approved for a week.

So she sent me copies and said I should book with my U.S. travel agent. I am attempting to book a one-way ticket for each of us and the travel office said they're not supposed to book one-way tickets for international travel. I quickly remembered that in most cases when entering a country on a U.S. passport you need a return ticket. I started with, "But I have a Taiwan work permit..." and then quickly realized that I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm now thinking that a work permit and a visa have no relation. The travel group advised me to call CIBT and see what they think as we contract with them for Visa/travel issues.

After making a couple menu based selections I received a human operator at CIBT and the conversation was something like this:

Me: "I work for so and so and we contract our travel with so and so and they told me to contact you with this acct # for some help regarding entry into Taiwan."

Operator Lady: "I can assist you with that. What is your specific issue?"

Me: "I'm moving to Taiwan next Monday. I have a Taiwan work permit. I don't yet have an ARC, residency card. I need to buy a plane ticket. Do I need to buy a round trip or can I get in on a one way?"

Operator Lady: "I can assist you with that. We do not handle relocation issues, only temporary travel."

I wonder what part of "assist" I don't understand! OK, I get the first "I can assist you" but the second time was just a lie. It doesn't bother me so much that I didn't get the answer I wanted but moreso that there is a humanoid on the end of the phone that is preprogrammed to say, "I can assist you with that", apparently no matter the request.

Now that I think about, whenever I've called a company and the operator immediately says, "I can assist you with that", they always have to transfer me to someone else to actually get help. I think that's really humanoid code that translates to, "look, I just answer the phone here".

When the robots come to conquer earth and demand, "Take me to your leader!", I'll say, "I can assist you with that."

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