Sir, - I wonder if I am alone in thinking that there should be a campaign against companies, especially large corporations, including State and semi-State bodies, which no longer deign to answer their telephones. You know what I mean: your call is connected to a disembodied voice which outlines a "menu", inviting you to "press 1 for so-and-so" etc., to the point where you have forgotten which choice comes closest to your requirement. Then, mirabile dictu, you are offered a live operator if you press zero.
Usually when I do so I am greeted by a disembodied voice telling me that all "agents" are busy and my call will be dealt with in rotation. Later I am told that my call is important, but "all our agents. . ." Eventually I get an operator and ask for the department I want. However, the next greeting is often: "the person at extension 1234 is unable to take your call at the moment, if you care to leave a message on her voice mail. . ."
At that point I slam the phone down in exasperation.
Another thing I find annoying is that we are all now no longer passengers or whatever; we have become "customers". I come from an age where a "customer" (and the word was usually prefixed by "rough" or "tricky") was somebody to be avoided. Nowadays it seems I have become a "customer", even when I am travelling very reluctantly on an overcrowded train.
I probably am alone in all this; when I complain, my friends look on me with pity, thinking: "hasn't he little to worry about"? But if we didn't worry about daft things, all your letters would be very serious indeed. - Yours, etc.,
W. J. Murphy, Gaybrook Lawns, Malahide, Co Dublin.