Prepare for a rant, because this angry person recommends…

1) Not ever upgrading Mac software unless it has been properly tested and glitches have been ironed-out. I’m talking about OSX Lion, which has rendered my £2000 iMac pretty much unusable. I’m going to have to wipe the whole thing clean and start again, re-do all of my settings, find my external hard-drives so that I can back everything up.. I love my Macs, but this is ridiculous. Don’t release a software upgrade until it actually works, you rip-off merchants, you purveyors of ‘cool’, makers of the worst earphones that have ever been invented. I mean, who charges the price of a PC laptop for an MP3 player and then bundles in earphones that send more sound out of the ear than into it?

2) Not ever listening to people employed by rail service providers. One man at King’s Cross told me that my £159 ticket wasn’t valid off-peak to get to Halifax, and so I queued for half an hour at the ticket office to be told that it was valid. Then, at Leeds, changing to get the train to Halifax, I asked at information whether the 21.09 was stopping at Halifax to be told that yes, it most definitely was. Did it stop at Halifax? No. Did I end up at Manchester Piccadilly with makeup artist Alex Byrnes, having to get a £100 black cab back to Halifax? Yes. And try getting through to Trainline! Good luck – chance would be a fine thing.

3) Not ever buying a service from a company who outsources their customer service department. I’m looking at MoreThan specifically, but there are plenty out there. The thing is, when I’m frustrated and in a rush, when something has gone wrong with my insurance or I’m being overcharged on my phone bill, I want to talk to somebody who speaks fluent, natural English. Someone who can pick up on the tone of my voice and note impending tantrums, someone who won’t have to spell back every single thing I say and get it totally wrong. Someone who won’t take fifteen minutes to find the make of my car and then tell me that it’s a van. It’s just terribly, terribly annoying – I feel slightly sorry, too, for the very people who annoy me in this situation. They’re just trying to do their job, and I bet that 90% of callers get frustrated and cross with them. So the caller loses, the customer service person loses, who wins? MoreThan, the company who are boosting their profits at the expense of the customer.

4) Not phoning, wherever possible, numbers starting with 0845 or 0870 – top tip, use this service: SAY NO TO 0870

That’s all for the moment – normal service will be resumed just as soon as the steam stops coming out of my ears!