Monday, 18 December 2006

Deeply Annoying






One of my Christmas presents hasn't arrived, so I've had the joy of trying to contact the company I ordered it from. By this I mean the tedious & soul destroying experience of going through the "Welcome to ______ , if you wish to _____ , please press 1, if you wish to _____ , please press 2, if you _____ , please press 3 etc., until you finally reach: "if you require ____ , please press 15". At that point you have: a) lost the will to live, & b) realised that your query hasn't been included in the list. Then you get the false hope of: "If you wish to speak to a customer sales assistant please hold the line", at which point the phone goes dead. I actually was in tears after 4 identical phone calls.

Frankly if the present arrives before Christmas I'll be pleased, but if it doesn't I really don't care. If this sounds callous, then I don't care about that either! (Nothing personal, Dad, if you're reading this).

At the risk of sounding like an old gimmer, I really do think that things were better in the old days - at least as far as telephone calls to companies was concerned. If nobody was there to answer your call or everyone was busy, the number just rang & rang - either it was picked up or it wasn't. YOU KNEW WHERE YOU WERE. So much has changed for the better: power steering, invention of gift bags, car indicators that switch off by themselves, videos & DVDs, remote controls for TVs, walk-around telephones, & many more that I can't think of at the minute. The introduction of automated phone operators is NOT one of them. Word.

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