Stalky Against the Machines

Today I'm frustrated with automated answering systems.  They make me want to throw things...normally the phone that I'm holding.  I actually went over my internet usage (too much blogging I guess) and wanted to contact my provider for a top up.  Simple?  Not so simple.  I'm sure many people will sympathise with me when I say I just want to talk to a human being.  Maybe not even a human being, just something that would respond to me.  I'd take a talking donkey if I could be sure it would actually say something back.  But the sound of that chirpy automated voice who tells you to listen to the instructions and make your selection actually makes me want to cry.  It wouldn't be so bad if it was just a case of making a basic choice but it's like a huge tangle of options that take you round in circles.  Once you've pressed 1 you then have to press 4 and then 2 and then hit star and then press 5 and then press 6 and then press 4 and then press 3 and ahhhhhhhhhhh!  Then after you've gone through the infuriating process of dialling a million digits and selected the option to talk to an operator, the automated voice kindly informs you that lines are only open between 10 and 5 and please call again later.  And this at 09.57.  My God!  Why the automated voice couldn't have told me this before I was put through the digit gauntlet I don't know.  Also, who opens their lines at 10.00?  That's just lazy.  So after much grumbling about stupid robot ladies I try again at 10.05, go through the rigmarole of pressing the same set of numbers again, hear the phone ringing to go through to an operator, hear the operator pick up the phone, hear the operator hang up the phone, hear a new robot voice tell me the call has failed and that I need to try again later.  Failed?  It didn't fail.  It was snatched away from me, stolen at the point when a human voice was about to break through.  That automated system is no doubt in league with the remote controls.  Working together to torment the human race.  Is nothing safe?  So far the washing machine is trying to shuffle it's way out of the laundry room, the remote controls are working independtely of human control and the automated telephone systems are trying to break us mentally.  Where does it end!