Spent most of yesterday yelling at Orange either on the phone or in person. Being deflected from one indifferent operative to the next, having to explain the frustration over and over again every time. By the end I was practically in tears.

Interestingly, it was the trying to contain mounting hysteria and continue reasoned discussion voice that panicked an operative so much he put me through to a supervisor (the holy grail of call centre harassment). She, of course, sorted everything out in five minutes flat. But the whole experience still left me feeling violated somehow.

There’s something about having to learn to think like a call centre that feels corrupting somehow. I played the game; I got things solved; and I got my refund. I exercised my consumer rights, and I should feel proud of that. But I don’t - I feel abused.

Perhaps it’s the Kafkaesque experience of utter powerlessness in the face of an arbitrary and emotionless system. Perhaps it’s the knowledge that the call centre flunkeys at the other end are as helpless in the face of recorded messages and interaction scripts as I am. Ultimately, though, I think it’s just that I wanted more than anything for someone not just to say ‘I understand your problem’ but to interact with me as a fellow human being.

I didn’t sign up for a world that believes you can mechanise the connections between people.