Bee - it seems half the UK feels like you do - many of the Revenue and Customs offices have these automated 'press one if you want to kill someone, press 2 if you want to kill yourself' type automated switchboards. My office doesn't. When you dial the number you see on the screen for my office, you get a human being (unless it's Carly's day to cover the phone in which case, you'll get an engaged tone) who will answer your call personally. Many taxpayers have discovered that they don't like waiting for the machines to run through the script so ring us instead because they just want to talk to a human.

LTS