Editing 3175: Website Task Flowchart

{{comic
| number    = 3175
| date      = December 1, 2025
| title     = Website Task Flowchart
| image     = website_task_flowchart_2x.png
| imagesize = 333x683px
| noexpand  = true
| titletext = Tired of waiting on hold? Use our website to chat with one of our live agents, who are available to produce words at you 24/7!
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created by a live agent producing words at you. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
This is a flowchart comic. It pertains to show how to accomplish a task on a generic website.

The first step, applicable to many (but not all) ineractive sites, is to actually attempt to log into the website. In most cases, successfully doing this might be taken as read (or at least the resulting success itself is), but these instructions make a specific point of leading you into a 'troubleshooting' section if it fails.

If the logging in does not fail (or no longer does!), the second step reduces ''everything'' that follows down to a single instruction to attempt to do whatever it is that you're actually trying to do. The only compromise given, is that it again leads you into a 'troubleshooting' section if this rather vagure endeavour leads to failure.

If you have managed to both work and log in (perhaps eventually, see below), its last stage is merely a congratulatory message. At this point, you have succeeded in the task that the flowchart was supposedly helping you to complete.

So far, so useless.

It is when you have problems that the flowchart gives you additional instructions. In both the case of being unable to log in ''and'' being unable to do the whatever-it-is that you're trying to do, the chart guides you to the perhaps just as unhelpful troubleshooting directive for the respective issue. In line with the generalist brevity of the other instructions, this merely consists of the instruction to troubleshoot the issue, without providing any actual guidance as to what specific approaches to take in that troubleshooting. The only concession given to the complexity that might be involved is that it explicitly states that you will have to spend several hours doing this (without any actual indication what it is that you'll be doing for several hours). Following which, each diversion queries whether any of whatever-you-did worked. The good news, if that all did work out in the end, is that you've now back on the the path that ultimately leads to the trite congraulations for being successful.

However, failing either troubleshooting dumps you into a "give up"-themed flow, sending you down the route of calling the Customer Service line. This procedes to uphold exactly the same standards of helpfulness as the rest of the flowchart, by intoducing you to the inevitable '{{w|On hold messaging|hold message}}' which it fully expects (probably correctly) to contain an automated suggestion that you try to use the website ''instead'' of calling them directly.

As, by now, you have probably been wrestling with the website already for several hours (perhaps twice over!), the flowchart does not actually present any proper 'advice', merely the prediction that the entire frustrating episode will then have you throwing both computer and the phone handset away, before even hearing the full message. Specifically, into the sea, which is a drastic (and possibly {{w|Landlocked country#Doubly landlocked|non-trivial}}) action to take. It should at least, however, formally end this attempt to accomplish your troublesome task upon the troublesome website.

The title text is yet another part of the typical automated support-line message, perhaps for anyone who had not followed the flowchart as faithfully. In this further recorded suggestion, you may be encouraged to visit the website's 'live chat' function, a fairly recent development that combines the best/worst<sup>&#91;delete as inapplicable&#93;</sup> aspects of both online and phone-line support. "Live agents" is an ambiguous term, ''possibly'' being true support-line staff with all the answers to your questions. However, as it often leverages the ambiguity of typed-text communications, it often remains ambiguous as to whether you have a single (and qualified) person assisting you, the conversation may well be passed around various rather less than knowledgable staff who are merely following a 'script' that follows a flowchart process (hopefully more useful than this one) to let them give more expert advice than they might be capable of. Or, increasingly, an automated/AI text-processing backend that attempts to understand your queries and follows a similar script-based rabbithole towards whatever conclusion it is capable of (including {{wiktionary|triage|triaging}} your initial responses before even allowing 'a real human', with the necessary skills, to be bothered by your request).

The claim that they can "produce words at you" might be {{w|English as a second or foreign language|slightly mangled English}}, or a blatently honest admission that any conversation you have will be with {{w|Large language model|a potentially inexaustible AI system}}. At its worst, the words you receive might have {{w|Markov chain|even less understanding}} of your problem, as merely being able to send even [[1068: Swiftkey|vaguely logical sequences of words]] might be worse than useless.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
Doing a task using a company or organization's website:
{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Flowcharts]]
[[Category:Internet]]