After hanging up from a two hour-phone call with my cable TV provider, much of it spent waiting for a human, I immediately got an email asking me to fill out a customer service survey.

The first question: Did my customer service representative solve my problem? No, but that's not the right question. The first question should be, "When we asked you to type in your phone number for faster service, did you know we were kidding?" Then, "Did you enjoy it when a live person finally came on the line and asked you for the same 10-digit phone number again? The one you typed in to make things faster? Did that speed up your service? Ha ha ha!

"How did you like our hold music? Pretty soothing, huh? We like to interrupt the good parts by telling you how important your call is to us. Did you think that recorded voice was soothing enough, or should we fire that person and hire someone else?

"The voice must have been at least somewhat soothing, because you were boiling mad when you first dialed this number. Now, you're realizing the futility of it all. You're even thinking of hanging up and using our online help tools, except you have no internet because we own that, too. Am I right, or what?