Also annoying is never knowing how deep the menu tree is. I have to write down (or hold my fingers out) what the best option/number at the time, because its likely to change as the resolution of options refines.

Including circular paths in phone menus ought to be some kind of professional misconduct, at least when they're not invoked by "go back" or "start again". There's nothing quite like getting seven levels in and discovering you swapped trees somewhere and are back where you started.

I usually go with loud noises or swearing. That gets me through to a real person. To make up for it, I always say "please" and "thank you" to Siri when im at home.

My guess is that most people call for stuff that's easily doable in the website, but they can't or won't use it

My father in law, who at 71 is fairly tech savvy, still defaults to calling when he needs help with something. He's always saying "I was on the phone with Apple for 3 hours yesterday" or "I was on the phone with Xfinity all day yesterday."

I think if you're from a certain era, you just pick up the phone first and want to talk to somebody, even if it might be pretty easy to find what you're looking for online.

Must depend on eras, yes, because personally I avoid using the phone at all costs. I'd rather take my eyes out with a spindle gouge than talk to someone over the damn phone

That often depends on your definition of easy – most large companies have poorly designed or buggy websites, lousy account management, etc. The problem is that the phone acts as a safety valve for those problems but when management sees the cost they react by trying to have fewer humans answering the phone rather than getting serious about UX.

my guess is that this is not the case, but it's still worth it to handle any situation they can with a robot, or as a consolation, an impatient customer.

In my experience, cursing loudly will get a human on the phone pretty quickly.