Mulling over George Pope to Steve Asher 30 Jul 2003

Hi George...

 SA> tone, which is then answered by another voice advising that "all 
 SA> our operators are busy, please hold", then some corporate messages
 SA> boasting about (that corporation's) excellent customer service & 
 SA> facilities.

 GP> Got that here, too, except instead of "please hold", you get dumped
 GP> into ANOTHER computer voicemail menu system (or, as happened to me,
 GP> the SAME one, at the beginning!) :|

 GP> And all the superfluous info you gotta put in -- I put my telephone
 GP> number & account number in when calling the telco, only to FINALLY
 GP> get connected to a live person who doesn't have that info in front
 GP> of them! :|  (what WAS the freaking POINT??) :|

It was the telco that I was calling, because I accidentally activated
"message bank" on my data line, & wanted to cancel it before it did
any damage. The first operator refused to do anything, when I finally
fought through the "press this" robot, because it was outside the hours
when people did that stuff, so I growled, but had no choice but to call
back in the morning. They only wanted me to insert the phone number,
not the account number, which is just as well, as I didn't have it
handy. Apparently they do have the information in front of them, but
ask for it again anyway, in case we mis-dialled, so as you say what's
the point.

After four calls & four fights with the robot, I got a human who finally
quoted the order number that had been issued to remove the message bank,
24 hours after the sorry saga started. What is happening in the name of
"free enterprise", "level playing field", "world
best practice",
"competition", "deregulation" etc would put Stalinist
Russia to shame
for the degree of frustration & inefficiency it inflicts on the long
suffering public.

Cheers, Steve..

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