Not a metaphor. Well, not SOLELY a metaphor.
I had pre-ordered three books that were delivered today. Withing an hour of them arriving, I noted that I was charged 10% MORE than the listed VIP price for each of them. After my first experience of the new AI chatbot (bastard child of Dante and Kafka, clearly), I decided to try the phone number I'd used in the past. It worked! I got through to a real person. Not as competent or professional as previous CSRs, but still a hominid. However, this hominid clearly works from home, because in the backgrond a canid could be heard loud and often, along with another hominid trying to quiet said canid. STILL better than wrestling with the AI, but
