You know, Peter makes a really good point when he describes how not to answer a telephone.

Recently though, there's been a disturbing increase in the number of companies who feel it's desperately important that they talk to me. Right now.

It's almost always companies that I'm doing business with (for example, the electricity company or a credit card provider). That wouldn't be so bad, you'd think, except that the messages they're about to deliver are so important that I have to wait on hold RIGHT NOW for them to talk to me!

Um, what?!

Sorry, you brainless dweebs, I'm the customer. And your message is important to you, not me. Ringing me in the middle of the weekend, because your financial systems didn't process the payment I sent you and telling me to wait for you isn't on. Minus 1,000 points.

Minus 1 trillion points when your automated redialling system calls every single phone I own when I hang up (I'm looking at you, GE), and on every single one of them, tells me to wait on hold.

Frankly I couldn't give a rat's¹ if you save 10 seconds of time on someone to whom you're barely paying enough to buy a sandwich a week, to deliver a marketing spiel I don't care about. You're wasting my time delivering the message, don't waste more of it on hold.

If you can't make a profit without this kind of idiocy, there's always bankruptcy. Use it.

1: "I couldn't give a rat's": I really truly don't give a stuff.