COVID CHAOS A few days ago, I drove to CLARK'S PET EMPORIUM to get much needed food supplies for my dog. As an essential business, they are allo

A few days ago, I drove to CLARK'S PET EMPORIUM to get much needed food supplies for my dog. As an essential business, they are allowed to be open, but I was horrified when two employees came out at different intervals to stand right next to my car and speak down on me, less than a foot away, and neither one of them were wearing masks.

Afraid to extend the conversation with them by remarking on the masks, and also afraid that one of them might be angered by being questioned about it and then even MORE droplets would be coming my way because of a more intense conversation, I decided to get out of there as quickly as possible and then call the owners later.

I looked up the telephone number of the owners on their website. (505-292-6288) It was a phony number that dumped me into their store telephone system. So I asked to speak to one of the owners (Michael or Thomas Steeples) or the store managers.

The young guy that came to the phone sounded very young and not terribly decisive. He said to me, "Yeah, we're not really wearing masks in the store. None of us are wearing masks." He also said that he understood it was serious, but his tone of voice did not convey that he actually comprehended that this issue IS serious.

He said he would "notify them." I quizzed him as to who "them" is - the owners? No. He said he was going to notify the store manager, which is the person to whom I was purportedly speaking. When I questioned him about this he said that the store manager was out to lunch and that he is the guy that answers the phone when the manager is gone! He tried to get me off the phone.

"Don't you want my phone number?" I asked him. He didn't sound like he was thrilled to be taking a message but he dutifully went to get a piece of paper and a pencil. He took my name and number, but I was not left with the impression that I should expect to get a return phone call. It isn't like he was rude. That's not it. He was disinterested and obviously disempowered.

woman wearing home-made cloth mask

I decided to call 311, which is the city general information number. I have, in the past, had great success with the 311 operators. They don't make you wait three years before they'll pick up the phone, and that number has never dumped me into a voice mail hell. They often have answers to questions like this.

The gal that picked up the phone WAS very accommodating. She referred to the information that she had at her disposal, but unfortunately could not tell me whether or not businesses that are staying open are required to wear masks or not. If they ARE required to wear a mask, I wanted to do what I could to nudge them into compliance. and if they are NOT required to wear a mask, I intended to find a different business that was doing this voluntarily.

The 311 operator gave me the number for the New Mexico Covid-19 non-emergency information line, which turned out to be the 9th level of computer hell that is much more concerned about the information they are NOT prepared to give you than any beneficial information. (1-833-551-0518)

If you are calling about platypus eggs, press 1.

If you are calling about the price of tea in China, press 2.

If you would like to know what temperature to bake bread, press 3.

If you want to learn how to swim, press 4

If you are calling about the circumference of a typical cowboy's hat, press 5.

A few of the "go away, don't bother me" phone numbers I found online

OK. I'm kidding about the topics - but they were no more helpful than the few examples, above. There WERE 9 levels of hell, plus several website addresses that the voice rattled off WAY too fast. NONE of it addressed this really simple request for information and no human being picked up the phone.

I hung up and called back, this time deciding to just pick a number at random, since none of them pertained to what I needed. It dumped me into YET ANOTHER computer voice mail that asked me to leave a message.

So I did. I left them a spicy message telling them that their stupid phone number is a PRETENSE - pretending to "be there" for citizens with questions, but answering nothing.

I called the 311 city government number again, and yet another very nice human being gave me a different number, this time the local number for the New Mexico Department of Health. (505-827-2613.)

The math behind social distancing

ONCE AGAIN, no human would answer the phone. It was another voice mail request for me to leave my name and number.

More and more these days, people in business and government are expecting computers to actually do their work for them. It is pure laziness to do so because computers cannot duplicate a thinking, living, breathing human being. Mentally lazy I.T. people concoct these excruciatingly long voice mail messages that do not anticipate all the possible reasons that a person may be calling that telephone number and do not give you any option to speak to a human about those other topics that the I.T. people are incapable of imagining.

It is more than obvious that the whole intention behind these 10-minute voice mail announcements is to avoid communicating with me or you. It is clear that their entire rationale is to avoid contact with us.

The 311 operators are a marvelous exception to what has become, more and more, the rule in our society.

Please don't get me wrong. I spend almost all day long connected up to the internet and I really do not know what I would do without it. I LOVE the internet. It helps me research. It helps me write. I learn how to make crafts. I learn how to play musical instruments. Even my prayer life and spiritual reading and participation is greatly enhanced by the internet. It is a wonderful tool, in the right context...but our telephones should remain telephones. We should not be greeted with a 10-minute invitation to get lost every time we call a company or a government office.

Apparently, the only way to quash this modus operandi is to make this way of doing business much more inconvenient for THEM than it is for us. You decide how you might do that. I, for one, will be making a very polite pest of myself, since I am already being treated like one.

Meanwhile, neither the manager nor the owners of Clark's Pet Emporium have returned my call. I have called the governor's office to encourage her to make social distancing mandatory for businesses that have been deemed "essential," since some of them, like CLARK'S PET EMPORIUM are not even doing the minimum.

God save us all.

Silver Rose