This is how the world will end.

A couple of months ago, and for the last several years, when I logged in to FEDEX their header would be two smiling women.
Then about two weeks ago they started putting Avatars of the women on the other side of the header.
One side, real women. The other side, their Avatars.
So today they have done away with the real women entirely and added two men.
Only not really men.
They have added ‘toons” of men. Cartoons.
There is something very insidious about this.
Its just like the phone call “tree” I must navigate several times a day. There are usually three branches before I get to a human. Or four branches before I get to a dead end, and no human available.
And the dozen phone calls I get a day? They are just like ‘toons. They are ‘bots.
I had a call last night from the Tarrant County Health Department. It was a real person. I was so glad to hear from a real person that I spent the thirty minutes answering all sorts of questions. Every time I got a little perturbed about how long it was taking, or how redundant the question was I reminded myself there was an endangered species on the other end of the line, just trying to do a public service and her job.
A human.