Madam, - Sadly, nobody is immune any more - call queueing is as inevitable as death itself.
I had occasion to ring Eircom the other day to report a fault on my line. After 35 minutes' waiting, which included a 10-minute conversation with an automaton, I got through to a real person. But she was even less pleasant than the metallic voice which had caressed me with his unctuous assurances: "Your call is important to us. Thank you for your patience. One of our operators will be with you shortly."
"Eircom Faults, Britney [ or it may have been Courtney] speaking".
"Before I relate the fault," I ventured, "would you like to guess how long it has taken to speak to you?" I was instantly cut off. So, it was back again through the torture of that murder-machine that is call-queueing.
Now, Eircom is not unique. Ring any concern, from credit union to crematorium, and you will get the same runaround, and all in the name of improving the service. Can you imagine the number of hours wasted nationally every week by people like you and me trying to get service, pay a bill or make an enquiry? It would surely run to tens of thousands, and begets nothing but pure anger and frustration.
If Euripides were to be believed, some deity somewhere wants to destroy us. Two-and-a- half-thousand years ago, he wrote: "Those whom a God wishes to destroy, he first makes mad".
He/she is well on the way to success. - Yours, etc,
Cllr JOE CONWAY, Roselawn, Tramore, Co Waterford.