I changed my mobile phone plan recently. A few days later I was enjoying a pleasant siesta when I got woken up by the sound of a text arriving. It said:

“Help us improve. Reply FREE OF CHARGE to rate the service you received from our shop a few days ago (0 Not at all satisfied, 10 Very satisfied)”.

What is it with this obsession for getting us to attribute numbers to everything? Stupid question. I know perfectly well why they want numbers: it’s easy to feed numbers from 1 to 10 into some program or other. Whether it actually serves some useful purpose is another matter.

If you phone Movistar on 1004 with a query or a complaint you’re asked to rate the attention you have received after you’ve spoken to one of their agents, even though the person you actually speak to in the end is not the problem. There are no questions about how long you were put on hold before you managed to speak to someone, or whether you were shunted around from pillar to post and had to repeat your query in detail several times in the process.

Anyway, back to the text that woke me up:

The service was fine, but your text woke me up from my siesta.

“I don’t know why you’re bothering,” said my daughter, “you’re talking to a computer”.
“I know.” Which was borne out by the computer’s response to my complaint:

“Did the shop have an adequate stock of terminals, SIM cards, dongles. (Yes/No)”

You haven’t read my previous answer.

“Thank you for your reply. To end, your comments are very important to us. How do you think we can improve?”

Give more and charge less. And stop sending texts that wake people up from their siestas”.

Now I remember to turn off my phone when I want a siesta.