automabyss

automabyss

aw’-to-muh-bis’

noun

That time and place when and where, respectively, one realizes the futility of dealing with a computerized telephone attendant which answered and irreconcilably routed his call.

Word Origin and History for automabyss
October 19, 2017

automaton + abyss

automaton
noun
1610s, from Latin automaton (Suetonius), from Greek automaton, neuter of automatos "self-acting," from autos "self" + matos "thinking, animated, willing," from PIE *mn-to-, from root *men- "to think."

abyss
noun

late 14c., earlier abime (c.1300, from a form in Old French), from Late Latin abyssus "bottomless pit," from Greek abyssos (limne) "bottomless (pool)," from a- "without" + byssos "bottom," possibly related to bathos "depth."

After Sheila, the kindly, new department manager at The Home Depot in Rome, Georgia, helped me get a free replacement commode, I called The Home Depot’s toll-free telephone number to provide my positive feedback, but its answering machine was unable to route my call to either Starr, the kindly, helpful human I had spoken to yesterday at a different toll-free telephone number at The Home Depot, instead casting me into the automabyss, when I was unable to guess what the answering machine’s programmer had contrived and where my next keypad choice would take me during the six minutes of my life that I had lost, thanks to the power of The Home Depot.

by Bit Bucket October 25, 2017