Customer Service

[Diaphone Jim]

It seems to me that American businesses, including manufacturing, health care, utilities, and government have gone to great lengths to simply eliminate accomplishing anything by phoning or emailing them.
"Please listen carefully to this menu..."
That means "We have carefully redesigned it so that you will not be able to talk to the person you want."
"If you are a consumer calling about warranty or service questions, please press or say three."
This means "We can't sell you something new so prepare to listen to this shitty music until your phone battery goes dead."

The newest trick sounds good.
"You are number 17 in line to talk to a real person. If you do not feel like waiting we will call you back when you reach number one.
Then you push a bunch of buttons only to find out that your call back maybe two days away.
What they are saying is that we don't feel like hiring enough staff to deal with your stupid problem, so we will talk to you at our convenience. Too bad if you are on the freeway when that time comes. Oh yeah we told you to have your model and serial number available.

There must be an industry specializing in this well thought out runaround.