Here's the opposite end of the phone... my pet peeve at work is that we are the only department that doesn't have an answerphone for out of hours or a 'hold' facility for entertaining customers or just plain reminding the operator that there is some poor person on the other end....

I also hate one particular inspector who will insist on me relating all the details and then telling ME what the answer is, rather than speaking to the person directly.

LTS