[TheForge] Phoning monolithic establishments (was: Computer question)

[Bruce Freeman]

Some of my secrets of successful (?) living include such gems as:
 
1)  Never write with a grievance to a government office or official. 
Your grievance will be handled by the lowliest available clerk, who will
do his utmost to avoid the problem by saying "No" in some officious way.
 
Rather, write to your elected representative, who will do his utmost to
avoid the problem without losing your vote (assuming he ever had it in
the first place - the major benefit of the secret ballot) by finessing
it over to the HEAD of the relevant agency, which is probably the same
person that you wanted to contact in the first place.
 However, THIS official can't avoid dealing with your grievance because
the person in control of his paycheck (the elected representative)
handed it to him and will want to know of its disposition.  This way,
your grievance will be passed down to the highest level bureaucrat
knowledgeable enough to handle it.  And your answer is more likely to be
a "yes" or other useful response.
 
2) If you wake up in the morning feeling completely unmotivated and
lethargic, you're probably constipated.  Treat that and the day will
look much brighter.
 
Well, anyway, I figure dealing with modern phone systems is somewhere
between (1) and (2), so here goes:
 
3) If you can't get through by phone to a large establishment, do this:
 Observe area code and prefix for AS MANY of their phone numbers as
possible.  You'll soon be able to generalize.  E.g., Looking in the
phone book I see that the State of NJ has a LOT of prefixes:  609.292
(as well as many others).  The last four digits start with 2, 3, 4, 5,
6, 7, or 9.  (I may have missed 0, 1 and 8 - no matter.)   HENCE, I
conclude that virtually any number I dial of the 609.292 prefix is
likely to ring SOME office of the state of NJ.  So, rather than try to
deal with the switchboard (which actually is rather helpful in NJ, no
need to pan it), I can arbitrarily dial ANY of these numbers, knowing
I'll get either a dead line, an empty office, or a person who is
probably sitting around trying to figure out how to spend his morning
and who will be delighted to have the diversion of something to do -
like transfering my call DIRECTLY to the person I need to speak to.  The
trick, of course, is when you get through to this person, you act very
uncertain and apologetic, "I'm not sure I've phoned the right office,
but can you help me...?"  This works, for government or for large
corporations.  Maybe not on the first try, but it works better than some
phone systems I've dealt with.  By a lot.  
 
Now that I think of it, I've got a lot of gems like this.  Maybe I
should write a book?
 
Bruce
NJ

>>> frosty@customcpu.com 11/13/2003 4:56:52 AM >>>

<snip>

I gave up and called and spent a good five minutes getting through
their
phone mail system. <snip>


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