Google Voice, you God ram plucking pizza ship.
I’ve spent the last hour trying to configure my voicemail on my phone. I was having one of those “why do the scientist make these things” mornings. One hour. Really. My voicemail is now all being sent to Google Voice, which will transcribe it and send me a notice to my cell phone and my e-mail and anywhere I decide to change it. I did a test call in which I just basically said, “Testing, testing, testing, testing, testing. No Jay, I don’t want to save the baby.” This is what Google translated it to:
“Hi, happy happy happy birthday. I think I think. I think that’s the court. I think I might projects.”
Really.
It is usually bad in a laughable, mad-lib way. One of my old co-workers frequently used a word that now escapes me, but Google kept transcribing it to “stalking.” I finally forwarded her a few and politely asked her to stop stalking me. Ha-ha. It was good for a meeting laugh. I can usually guess from context, though, what it is about and listen to it if I need clarification. For example, I got this one on Friday:
“Hi, this is and I fly from. Maintree I was calling to let you know that we’re going to say I’m at this number party tonight at 8 A should bring her swimsuit and towel with her when she comes. If you have any questions my number is [removed]. Give me a call back. Otherwise, we’ll see you later tonight. Thanks. Bye.”
The gist of it was Ada needed to bring a towel and swimsuit to her slumber party at Raintree. The one I left today though? Yeah.
ETA: Lydia provided me with the link the Onion article which I remember existed, but couldn’t remember anything else about it to bother finding it. Now I have a more appropriate title to describe my morning experience with Google Voice.
um, yeah…you should see what Google has transcribed some of my messages to M as…let’s just say….if I were what Google said I was, I should have been in an ambulance!!!
Surely there is already a blog with funny transcribed Google Voicemails. I’m just too lazy to Google to find it.
The transcribing seems to get names wrong a lot. Interesting to see that it put “birthday” after “happy”, I wonder if it actually thought you said “birthday” or didn’t know what you said and so it just thought that “birthday” would be a good word to put after “happy”
Did you configure your phone to always call from your Google Voice number too?
They probably thought “birthday” was the most used word after someone says “happy.”
Yeah, I did configure to have my phone always call from my Google Voice number. The Google Voice app also has the benefit of making the LED light blink if I have a voicemail, so if I happen to miss the call and the e-mail, then hopefully I’ll notice the blinking light the next time I’m near my phone.
I’m sure you remember this Onion article, yes?
http://www.theonion.com/articles/voice-recognition-software-yelled-at,4304/
BEST EVAR.
Oh, thank you! I remembered that there was one, but did not recall anything about it to bother searching for it.
Now I have a much more appropriate title for my post.