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People (customer service reps, cashiers, and the like) who blame the computer when they can't do whatever it is that I need them to do for me. "I can't change your address record from here, the computer won't let me. You'll have to call our other department." Codswallop. Give me a couple hours with the system and I could make it do it. No, it's one of several other possibilities, none of which have anything at all to do with the computer. The management intentionally chose not to provide that functionality. They overlooked it. You don't have the kind of security access that would let you do it (again a management decision). The programmers at your company are incompetent. You're simply not allowed to. Or you're being recalcitrant or lazy.

Voice mail customer service systems that ask me to enter my account number on the telephone keypad and then don't do anything with it: the minute the csr gets on the phone they ask me for it again! And then they find I'm not in their service area, and transfer me somewhere else, so that I have to go through the whole rigmarole again.

These are really the same thing: inefficient system design, bad business rules, or bad programming. In a world where it is possible for me to send a message instantly to .jp or .uk or .timbuktu, why can't one branch of the cable company send a message to the other one?

It's a business rule or a failure of design, not the fault of the computer. Computers do exactly what they're instructed, which is both their greatest strength and their most irksome characteristic. As a programmer, there have been many many times I've grumbled "Do what I meant, not what I said!"