Rant 192 10/7/12 Subject: Companies that don't want to talk to you

Rant number 192


The telephone is part of the modern world. Changes are you've got one on you right now, either in your pocket, in your hand (probably while you are reading this) or within a 2 metre radius of you on your desk, sofa or coffee table.

For all that psychologists have for have for years spoken about non verbal communication, we have pretty much got to the point where its a luxury to be in the same postcode as someone else during a conversation.

To paraphrase, we talk a lot - and mostly we talk on the phone.

It's good to talk, or some bullshit like that.

As well as recreation and family stuff, we also need to talk to people we are buying from, selling to etc etc.

And sometimes that falls down badly.

You see, talking to people who don't want to talk to you is difficult. If you call me for instance, and I don't fancy talking to you, you can leave a message for me or send a text - it's easy enough.

If you want to talk to a big firm however, they will do anything they can to stop you taking up their valuable time.

First of all, they will put you through an appallingly long winded and complicated auto-attendant.
Should you pass this hurdle, they will then try and tell you the website can fix your problem (and if it could, you wouldn't have bothered fucking phoning, would you?,) then it'll tell you about the call being recorded, and costing you £12 per minute - and anything else they can think of to put you off holding on.

Finally, you will put on hold for around 45 minutes - to finally find that the person on the end of the phone can't help you anyway.

Phones are a bloody nightmare!

Rant over.