"Listen carefully because...

...our menu options have changed." That's what I hear every bloody time I dial an 800 number for technical support or customer service. And then begins the seemingly interminable list of choices you can make offered to you by a mystery person who has the job of trying to narrow down your question to some impossibly closely defined specialty. If you are fortunate enough to hear something that sounds close to what you want they then want some identifier from you like your account number, last 4 digits of your social security number or for security purposes, your mother's maiden name. If after 53 assurances that your call is important to them you actually connect to a person, that person will usually go through all the previous account number inquiries followed by the pound sign all over again, leaving you wondering why you had to enter them in the first place.

Maybe we need some legislation prohibiting the changing of menu choices more than once a day. Maybe even better we could have the person who is inventing all those menu choices stop doing that and actually answer the damn phone.

To hear these choices in English, press 1, in Spanish press 2, and so on for as many numbers as their are on the keypad. This call is being recorded for quality control and training purposes and finally if my call is so damn important to you, then ANSWER IT!