I booked tickets for the national concert hall recently and a nice man answered the phone immediately, talked me through my options, I booked my tickets and they were sent out by post.
Today I wanted to book tickets for a show in the Olympia Theatre. The Olympia has decided to dispense with the person in the foyer who takes bookings and has instead entered into a deal with Satan. Sorry, ticketmaster. So I telephoned ticketmaster and made my way through the poorly organised menu – am I going to a particular location, family event or a concert? no, a play but there’s no button to press for that, go for location and know that this is going to end in tears but nevertheless say Olympia theatre clearly into the phone. I then waited 15 minutes until a man from the North of England came onto the phone to take my booking. A perfectly nice man, I hasten to add, and it’s hardly his fault that by the time his customers come on the line they are always a bit peeved after the long wait time. But he’s not exactly a local who knows the layout of the theatre, is he? In any event, the wretched thing was booked out.
There must be a moral here somewhere.
I absolutely despise those automated answering/speech recognition/”Satan deals” Your term for it hits the nail quite precisely on the head. The minite I discover I’ve got to deal with one, my blood pressure jumps about 15 points and I do the human equivalent of that arched back-puffed tail-hissing and yowling-cat-thing. Number 2 on list is having to deal with those farmed out to somewhere halfway around the globe, English as second language, tech support service where you have to play along with their little script. — yes I rebooted, yes, I unplugged and replugged the cable. etc., etc., and then find out they haven’t a clue how to help you.
Hmm, yes, very distressing. That kind of task usually falls to my misfortunate husband.