Just bought an Apple product? Need support NOW? Drop an F-BOMB

When you're caught in automated telephone-support hell, there's a magic word you can utter to ensure that you're quickly routed to an actual human being: the "F-bomb".

"I was having some trouble with my (older) laptop and wanted to order a new keyboard to fix it myself," a Reddit poster writes. "After exploring every option possible in the machine based list, I eventually got frustrated and used a few choice words that triggered something in the computer I was talking to."

Those few choice words prompted Apple's canned-reponse voicemail system to cut short its well-nigh interminable call-and-response support roundabout, and pop that poster directly to a flesh-and-blood tech who was able to answer his question.

As The Next Web notes, Apple is not alone in that its automated lines are programmed to detect "signs of distress," including the aforementioned F-bomb.

Whether naughty language will consistently get you to a helpful techie, or whether it will merely pop you over to a supervisor who will attempt to mollify you, only to send you back into the same ol' support loop after your steam has been released, is apparently a crap shoot.

But if you're certain that you're speaking with a machine and not an overworked, underpaid call-center drone, it's worth a try, eh?

The Reg looks forward to reading your comments after you've employed this gambit when you've found yourself languishing in voicemail limbo. ®