A few months ago I switched from Android to iPhone. In the process of doing so, somebody somewhere sold my phone number to a marketing moron, and before I knew it, I was receiving multiple calls per day from random numbers. Perhaps the most annoying were from a pre-teen telling me to call a random number to avoid being fined for something or other.
This all coincided with the update to iOS that allows you to have a virtual receptionist take calls from anybody not on your contact list. Problem solved. And another problem created.
For some reason known only to Apple, I can now listen to recorded messages taken by my virtual assistant, but if I call those people back via the options while listening to recorded messages, I cannot see those outgoing calls in the call history. Genius move.
This only really takes hold when you’ve just got through passport control at the airport, and you try to call the taxi you booked several weeks ago - that left a message with your virtual assistant, because nobody you don’t know is allowed to call you any more, because some idiot marketer sold your information several months ago and ruined the world for everybody.
Don’t even get me started about the taxi company - that used to meet you at the gate years ago - and now you have to call while they stay somewhere near the airport, because they don’t want to stop, because that will incur hilarious fees at the terminal. You end up having a broken conversation with a non-english-speaking driver as they try to tell you that they will pick you up from departures - not arrivals - for that specific reason, but without telling you that’s why.
And another thing…
Why is it the more expensive the hotel, the more utter garbage their IT infrastructure is? We stayed in a really nice hotel in Copenhagen. To connect to the WiFi I had to remove all protections from my phone, and completely disable VPN. I had to do this every time my other half wanted to watch television, because the TV wouldn’t remember who I was at all. Except it did the day we left, when I got home and found out somebody in our hotel room in Copenhagen was watching TV on my Netflix account. I stopped their fun as soon as I found out.
Why? Why does everything have to be so damn difficult all the time?
I’ll stop ranting now. Deep breaths.