Operator, Dammit. I Said Operator!

Everyone hates phone trees. And some of us hate them even more now that they employ crappy voice-recognition software ("I'm sorry, I didn't understand that. Did you say 'cancel my account'?"). Mercifully, for every time The Man screws you, there's some innovator out there waiting to screw him right back. Meet NoPhoneTrees.com.

Here's what the BETA does, according to a company rep:

"Our mission is to help users skip phone trees and connect with a real human on the customer support phone lines at many companies throughout the U.S. Users simply choose the company they wish to call, and we'll dial the company directly, navigate their phone tree, and call them back when they are in queue for an operator or customer service representative."

Via Freakonomics blog.