Aggravation

125% fully automated phone trees, especially when they are inextricably attached to critical services... say you're trying desperately to find out where your money is, was, or is going to be for your credit card payment. and you have to enter everything via a numeric keypad. even letters, which you just have to have faith are being translated correctly for the computer to understand and not send your payment to guam. this was especially prevalent in the wake of katrina, and i think i still have too much mental scar tissue built up to forget the pain of trying to get in touch with an actual human being.

other things i hate: when i paid 1000% more on postage to track a mailing down into the states, yet canadapost.ca throws up its hands in despair once the letter crosses the border. even though the "xpresspost" envelope is specifically labeled for delivery to the u.s., so the IMPLICATION there is that they fullly EXPECT this package to go into the u.s., and you would think you'd still be able to track it... but no. you can't.

and finally, organizations that think that, because it's a national holiday, they can send their entire technical support team on break (rather than giving the team a break spread out over the surrounding days so the phone isn't left unattended and ringing off the hook). as if tech problems take the holiday off, too. what the hell? here's a suggestion, guys... some of us ONLY have time on weekends and holidays to take care of technical stuff, and if we run into a probllem, we need your help then, not 2-4 days later.

communicate with me here, people. please... and i promise to do the same in return.