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

I guess they don't do 'off-road' rollators?

Good point, Icy. "They" probably think that people with mobility issues don't spend time in the countryside. My rollator is fine on level ground, including lawns, but horrible over ruts of any kind. Partly it's the small wheels and solid tyres, partly it's the lack of suspension. Maybe I should develop a rollator with fat tyres and suspension. But then, how much of a market is there for it?

Walking down Steep Jill again yesterday, I realised there were no wheelchairs or scooters. I'm sorry it isn't in any way accessible. I suppose the paving slabs down the side aren't any use either: there seem to have quite deep gaps between them as well

I was looking into mobility scooters for my Mum. She lives up a steep, rutted driveway & I reckoned she'd need an off roader for that. They're a lot more expensive though. She says she doesn't want one anyway - no pavements & she wouldn't dare go on the road.

It's a long time since I last went along Steep Hill. It's too tiring, even when I'm able to get about without a rollator. I think they should set up a system of sleds to ride down on. There could be some kind of pulley system to get the sleds back to the top, carrying anyone who wanted to make the upward trip.

Using my four wheel stroller (with seat) when I use the bus and the bus driver just looks at me and does not and not realise that he/she is supposed to put down the bus ramp so I can get on. I am lucky if they even bother to lower the bus floor. The bus driver just watches me struggle getting on the bus with my stroller when he/she has not either lower the bus floor or put down the bus ramp.

There was actually a slide down Steep Hill, Cheerful, during the Magna Carta celebrations (one way only) This was before my fantastic new hip, so I didn't think I'd better apply for one of the rare tickets.

Today's Petty Hate is repeated advisory messages when I'm making a phone call. It wasn't "Your call is important to us" this time. It was "Due to increased demand for our services, it may take longer than usual to answer your call." I wouldn't mind so much, but it's not a freephone number and I'm paying for the call. There were lots of other messages that I didn't want to listen to, including"We're sorry to keep you waiting. We'll be with you as quickl as possible."

Another Petty Hate is phoning as soon as the office is supposed to be open and still going on hold for ages. The call

That posted before I was ready. To continue...

The call went to NU tone after about 15 minutes. I tried again and was on hold again. I'm going to email the company, but it's an urgent matter and I want to speak to somebody.

That is annoying indeed... My worst session of being on hold was when I called at 5.50pm and spent the next 15 minutes being told "the office closes at 6pm but your call will be answered shortly" - if they had had the decency to change the message to "The office is now closed" I would have rung off at 6pm, but wondered if I was in some sort of queue that would be answered even though the office closed in the middle of the queue... At 6.05pm I decided that the likelihood was that they would happily leave the queue on hold all night as it wasn't freephone, so I rang off...

Qeued call back systems are more honest and an enormous saving of system resources, amount saved increasing with higher providers.

And why is it that if you phone one of these places and get fed up with waiting on hold for ages, hang up, dial again and get straight through?

I am often shocked at work by the amount of time I, as a supplier, have to wait when I call customers. To make it worse, I am using the same number as their customers use. This would put me off buying from them if I were the customer and not the supplier.

I'm happy to say that I was called back very quickly after sending the email. The woman I spoke to was very apologetic and arranged for the drug to be delivered on Monday. I'll definitely be using email to contact them in future. It's much less hassle.

Automated qeued call-back systems save more system resources, the larger the system is.

At a given institution, rather than lines kept open while people wait, the lines are cleared pending an automatic call-back.

The greatest savings in system time and resources are at the level of the service providers, but even the individual saves minutes on their phones and time which can be put to some other purpose than uselessly holdin an open line.

How do the automated call backs work?

I have experience of something, where it said there was a 15 minute queue but you could call back in 10 minutes, enter a code and then rejoin the queue with 5 minutes to go. However, I couldn't get the system to recognise the code, so I ended up waiting for 15 minutes after that anyway - doesn't sound like what you're describing, though...

I encountered something like a queued callback system the other day, or so I thought. I think it might have been my mail-order pharmacy. Anyway, I was online and found a page suggesting I enter my phone number and one of their reps would call me. Well that sounded much better than calling them and sitting on hold for 30+ minutes. So I did just that.

Less than a minute later I received my call...


And sat on hold for 30+ minutes.

Queued call-back began to take off in California with repeated crashes of the in-house system at the department of motor vehicles on account of more incoming calls being placed on hold than their system had capacity for.

Usually one is given the option of staying on line or receiving a call back and depends on caller ID or a number supplied by the caller.

The system records one's position in the queue and when an operator becomes available, automatically calls back.

Queued call-back has been gradually spreading, especially through government offices for which its an enormous saving, but also increasingly in the private sector.

That is about the 30 minute wait... The only saving there is that they paid for the call rather than you, I hope...

Ah, that is much more sensible, that the callback system is able to take your phone number rather than a random code... Seems simple enough, but isn't something I've encountered yet - definitely something that needs to spread

The companies are supposed to profit somehow from the phone company by keeping callers on hold. I think I've come across a call-back system before. Here in Germany numbers are not allowed to be suppressed - especially from cold callers or companies - and most private people don't suppress their number either, so it's easy enough for them to call back.

I was on my mobile, so whether or not I initiated the call, it was coming out of my alloted talk time.