Worst Phone UI Ever

I have one of the worst ISPs in existence-of this I’m quite confident. Like many, I have an Internet/Cable/Phone Service bundle, so my phone service is through my ISP.

Well, mine is sufficiently asinine that when I go to dial a local number I have to guess between three different ways to dial it, and if I get it wrong the call won’t go through. So, based on some sort of internal scheme they have (based on non-area-code prefix), I either have to:

1. Dial just the prefix and number, e.g. 555-1212
2. Dial the area code and the prefix, e.g. 510-555-1212
3. Dial using a 1 and then the full number, e.g. 1-510-555-1212

But I don’t get to know which I need–even within my own frickin’ area code. This is the sorriest interface I’ve ever seen to a phone system.

Oh, and to top it off, when you do it wrong it rings like five times before answering to tell you that you cannot complete the call the way you dialed it–and it tells you this in an English accent. It doesn’t tell you what you need, of course, you just know at that point to try the other two.

So. Lame.

I hate this damn place; these people are so goddamn backward they wouldn’t even understand there’s a problem if I explained it to them. I can’t wait to go home. ::