How To Deal With Computerised Telephone Operators

I rang Centrelink last night to inform them that I was going to make more money this year than I initially thought and that they should be taking away my family allowance payment. Well, I'd give them the figures anyway and let them decide if I was still entitled to it.

I was greeted by a computer operator which seemed surprisingly intelligent and was very polite. These things don't react well to sarcasm however. I updated my income and Miky's income. It had the two figures but when they were added up it came up with "underscore lasdghelkvnlskdfw". When informed that it was incorrect I heard, "I'm sorry. My mistake." So, I had to go through the process again and it came up with the same figure. Wrong again. "My mistake again. I must have misheard that (or similar)."
"No shit, Sherlock" was my response. At this point the computer realised that I should be put through to an operator.

Hey presto. If you don't want to speak to a computer just swear and you get put through to a real person. Well, a person who works for Centrelink. Ha ha. James sounded very young and did his job well for which I was grateful. He confirmed that there probably was some recognition of swear words built into the system.

Don't try this with Telstra though. No matter how much you swear and get frustrated it doesn't help. Their computer is just not #$%&ing smart enough.