If I had a customer service line (Spoiler: I do)

Earlier this week on air, I asked listeners a simple question: If you had your own personal customer service line, what would people complain about most? The answers were honest. Occasionally brutal. 

“Late replies”. “Bad parking”. “Selective hearing”. “My tone”. That last one came up a lot. 

But as the messages came in, I had a slightly unsettling realisation. I don’t need to imagine a complaints line because I already have one. It’s not recorded “for quality purposes”, although, for entertainment value alone, it probably should be. 

So impressive is the volume that there are days it feels like I’m the unofficial complaints desk for members of the Jewish community. The range is extraordinary, from nursing issues at Linksfield Hospital to the price of kosher-for-Pesach food, which, to be fair, deserves its own regulatory body and possibly United Nations intervention. 

Other days, I’m apparently handling overflow calls for Israel itself. 

If an antisemite stumbles across a 2012 photo of a Syrian soldier kicking a dog, mislabelled “IDF brutally brutalises Brutus”, there is every chance I will be summoned. I will be expected to clarify, contextualise, apologise, and, if possible, issue a statement for the attention of the Kempton Park SPCA, which has somehow been dragged into this narrative for reasons no one fully understands. 

And on particularly ambitious days, I moonlight as the global Jewish affairs representative. For all of diaspora Jewry south of the equator. 

If a Jew litters in Caulfield on the way to synagogue, I am expected to not only be aware of the incident, but to condemn it in the strongest possible terms. Because, naturally, Australian Jewry falls squarely within my jurisdiction. Which is fascinating because I don’t remember being appointed. And have never even visited the island. 

I have received no training, unless you count being born into a family with the dominant complaining gene. My paternal grandmother could have won Olympic gold if complaining were a sport. Judges would have scored her highly for consistency, volume, and facial expressions. 

My complaints line has no escalation protocol. No helpful menu options. No “press 1 for geopolitics, 2 for synagogue politics, 3 for kosher establishments, 4 for the ANC, and 5 if the rabbi should have known you were ill and didn’t even reach out once. Not even once. Which, frankly, after all you’ve done for him, and his family, is a disgrace.” 

In truth, there needs to be a rabbinical hotline. 

“Why did he say what he said? Why didn’t he say what he should have said? And mostly, surely, even if his wife isn’t being paid, has six children under the age of four, and works a full day, she needs to entertain more frequently!” 

The uncomfortable truth is that it isn’t really about me. Or rabbis. Or restaurants. Or even Israel. It’s about how we deal with complexity and things we don’t like it. It’s about feeling noticed and heard in a world that tends to look past those who are quiet. 

Which is why we look for a number to call, to have someone answer, explain, and absorb our frustration. 

Some complaints are valid. Some are even helpful. And some … are just sport. But most of them reveal far more about the caller than the person answering. So yes, where my customer service line is open there is one small disclaimer: You may have reached a representative, just not the one responsible for everything you’re upset about. 

Stay on the line to rate our service.