Following months of trouble with both telephone and internet connections, British Telecom engineers noted that David Critchard’s password was overdue a change. And so they helpfully changed it. “I was sent an email to tell me that it had been changed, containing the new password,” writes David. “But of course I couldn’t access their message because I didn’t have the password.”

Customer services at BT simply couldn’t understand why this was a problem. “Finally somebody with a grasp of logic told me I should have used the ‘change password app’ on my phone to change my password yet again, so that I could log in and find out why my password had changed and what they had changed it to.” (Reported in New Scientist)

Dealing with telephone companies may shorten your life. For ataraxia, be like me – I don’t phone anyone, and certainly not telecom companies. I don’t have the patience to keep entering the endless string of numbers as they attempt to find out what you want. Why can’t you tell a human being? (Just joking. They don’t employ any any more)