h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There's also the Moebius Queue, a theoretical construct that can be glimpsed in the hearts of bureaucratic institutions and technical support services. The Moebius Queue is similar to an ordinary queue, although participants quickly realise that it doesn't have a destination. Examples include:

"They sent you here, did they? Oh dear, oh dear - you want the 'Department of Procrastination' - just down the hall on the left..."

and, as experienced in what must be the closest thing to Hell on Earth, namely Voicemail:

"If you are calling from a business, please press 1 now... if you are calling from an educational establishment, please press 2 now... if your call is urgent and you don't have the mental tenacity to grit your teeth and listen to distorted, mindless musak for a week, please grimace, abandon hope and hang up now..."

Azimuth

This reminds me so much of the time I wanted an answer to a technical question about my internal fax modem: I couldn't import a faxed document into a word-processor, amend it and send it back.

I called the Fax people's tech-support line and left a message. Half and hour later I realised I also had a modem there and called their tech support. The modem tech support told me I couldn't do that with the software.

The next day I received an evaluation form from the Fax tech-support admin., asking how I liked their support...which I never received. I told them what I thought of their tech support, also suggesting the use of many regional centres instead of one massive one as to prevent probable delays of several days before actually speaking to a living entity.

I didn't hear back from them....and I've since switched to Mac, so this isn't an issue any longer.

Fruitbat

I know of a company that had one or two problems with its new voicemail system - like most setups, the automated voice would list a number of options before prompting you to 'press 0 if you would like to speak to an operator'. Pressing 0 would take you to another menu, with even more options and another 'Press 0 for the operator' message. This continued for a few iterations, until the final stage:

'Press 0 if you would like to speak to an operator...'

(beeep)

'Thank you for calling; goodbye!'

(bzzzzzz)

Quite a neat system, I thought!

Azimuth