Wishing For An Empathetic A.I.

 "I don't understand."

That's me... On the phone with a large financial institution... Trying to get an old 401k (from 2006 - and that I had forgotten about) rolled over into an IRA I've set up with another financial institution. 

I'd done this same request the week before, with another 401k from my last agency. They'd been able to directly deposit it into the rollover account. 

"(That institution) specifically doesn't allow us to directly deposit things. We have to cut a check and either have it mailed to you to deposit with them, or have it sent to them to deposit."

This was beyond annoying.

"Okay. Well according to their website, if you're going to cut a check and mail it to them, it needs to have all of the following information on it so that they know it needs to go into my account."

Apparently they can't put all of that information on the check.

"There isn't enough room," I was told.

"You guys have done this before, right?" I asked. "What does everyone else have done to make it easy to move old 401ks from you to (this other institution)?"

I was about to jump through the phone and punch the woman on the other end. It felt like she was intentionally not being helpful. And I could understand if it was a large sum of money I was moving out... But it wasn't. Additionally, I still had a sizable investment account with them. But I could easily move that out if needed.

The woman sighed and assured me they do this all of the time. And if I really wanted the check sent to the other place, they don't actually need all of the information they said they need on the check.

What should have take less than 10 minutes to do ended up taking 30 minutes because the woman couldn't just say, "Well, if you're sure you want to move it, here is the easiest way to do it."

They had the audacity to send me an email afterwards asking me how I would rate the transaction experience.

Fuck. That. Noise.

But I know that customer service reps get evaluated - sometimes heavily - on feedback. And when there is even the slightest hint of negative feedback, it really fucks them over. Even if they are simply following operational protocol. 

Which I suspected the woman had been doing. She wasn't trying to be difficult. She was likely following the process to not be as helpful.

I wish A.I. would go ahead and completely take over already.

It would probably have more empathy.