Pet Peeve - automated customer service

How many times have you called a customer service number and only to get these automated answer that prompts you to press a number or worse say a number or word? I really really hate those cause 90% of the time, I just want a live person to give me the answer or help me with my needs. And more often than not, what I need is not even in the options to press. Or it takes forever to get to the option that I need. And those voice detecting programs that direct you to your need are just super annoying. How many times do I have to say "agent" before the machine actually tries to connect me to an agent?