Process: Introducing passive-aggressive commerce

Northwest Airlines reps sometimes give a "special direct phone number" for "calling straight into customer service" to customers who have tricky ticketing problems. I've been given this number a couple of times by helpful, reassuring phone reps.

I've called it... but never was able to reach the person who had been helping me.

Once I diagrammed the call routing tree behind that special direct-dial number, the cause of this disconnect became clear: there are no paths that actually reach humans. All options eventually terminate in recordings (that play, then drop the call) or references to other phone numbers.

This concern-without-performance is "passive-aggressive commerce"... watch for more of it in the real world in the future, and more reports of it in this space...