For your convienence

That's such an odd phrase. It very often means something quite different from the surface meaning.

For instance, I just purchased tickets to The Thirty-Nine Steps, for the Hippodrome in Baltimore next month. I tried to do it on-line, but first BroadwayAcrossAmerica.com didn't recognize my account (despite my having just used it to get season tickets for next year) so that I was forced to create a new one, and then it told me that account "doesn't have access" to the price and purchase of that show.

So I called the numbers. "For your convenience" their phone lines are open till 5 pm, Central. Oh well, I could always call the Hippodrome. Oh ... "for your convenience" the box office is open between 10 am and 3 pm. Gosh, unless I work in Baltimore that's not actually so very convenient. (Convenient hours would be, say, 3-9 pm.) Well, I could call back the next day.

So I did. And discovered that, for ticket purchases, the Hippodrome's box office phone number routes you to - yes - Broadway Across America, and for actual purchases that means you end up with Ticket Master. Who assesses a "convenience" fee of $10. Per ticket.

Now, that "convenience fee" is, actually. Clearly unless I can run up to the Hippodrome during the work day, which I can't without taking time off work, it's more than "convenient". And though the amount stunned me when I heard it, on reflection it's really probably less than the $1 per ticket I remember paying back in the 1970s when I first encountered Ticket Master (though it still annoys me that it's a per ticket fee, not a per call fee). But how can anybody have the gall to present extremely limited hours of operation as "for the customer's convenience"?

I'm not saying you have to actually have convenient hours (though that would be nice)You don't have to say anything at all. Just tell me your hours. Just drop the stupid phrase. It's annoying..