My ever-insightful brother, during his most recent visit, lauded a website, Gethuman, that provides a database of phone numbers for massive corporations and service companies that will take you directly to a real, live person. Um, amazing!
No longer do you have to get stuck in an endless digital loop of 'press 1, press 7, press 3, press 5 and then *, goodbye.' Gone are the days when you speak articulately to the United man about a flight arrival from London only to have him respond 'I think you said you're flying to Juneau, Alaska, is this correct?' NO!
Freedom friends, in the form of a live voice.
Of course, this doesn't guarantee you will then be speaking to competent people, but at least you can be condescending to a person and not a computer...which is much more satisfying.