Automated Telephone Answering Machines

As anyone knows who has needed to contact customer service for their cell phone/computer/bank account/etc., you've probably experienced a situation that goes something like this:

Automatron: "Hello, thank you for calling [insert company here]. For English, please press one. Para Espanol, oprima el numero dos por favor. Please listen carefully, as our menu options have changed. For information on directions or store hours, please press three. For information on servicing [said product from said company], please press four." And so on and so forth, except they never give you the option to talk to a real person. And to add insult to injury, although you used to be able to press zero to reach the operator, the automatron managers have wizened up. Now when you press zero, the automatron says, "I'm sorry, you have selected an invalid entry."  And then you have to listen to the entire menu of options all over again.

Now, there are two things that can happen at this point (of course, after you listen to Muzak/Kenny G, interrupted every 45 seconds or so by the automatron saying, "Thank you for staying on the line, your call is important to us" (which is obviously A LIE)):

a) You press and/or say the wrong command, and (always in a British accent, it seems) the automatron says, "I'm sorry, I do not understand your request. Goodbye." What?! Are you freaking kidding me?! I've been pressing buttons and/or on hold for 45 minutes, and you're just going to hang up on me?! I hate you, stupid robot!

b) If and when you end up speaking to a real person, you have to re-explain everything you just explained to the automatron. Not to mention, the people who answer the phone often work in other countries and have very thick accents and can at times be hard to understand. Additionally, these people often don't know anything about the product they're diagnosing for you, they're just reading from a script. In any case, why is it that I need to spend 20 minutes with the automatron, only to spend an additional 25 minutes explaining the exact same thing to a person who probably not going to be able to help me?!

Automated Telephone Answering Machines: Practical in theory, unhelpful and exasperating in practice.

Let's start a petition to bring back real receptionists, receptionists who answer phones. Who's with me?!