407 ETR survey rant - poorly designed and delivered survey

Tuesday was a crazy and, at times, stressful workday. I technically have three rants, but I will go with the one that has nothing to do with work.

Just before dinner, I got a phone call from a person doing a survey on behalf of 407 ETR, which is a toll highway. I take this highway going to work, but don't coming home because it can get expensive.

By doing the survey, I would receive 100 km of free travel on this toll highway. This woman pointed out that it would take fifteen minutes to complete this survey. Cool.

Well, the more I got into the survey, the more I found so many issues and flaws. This survey actually took over thirty minutes to complete. This woman sounded older. She had a British accent. She couldn't type, attentively listen to my comments, or form a simple sentence.

This survey was biased. It was really to find out what customers thought of 407 ETR after an employee who used to work there stole a list of customer phone numbers and names for his own political needs.

I frankly wanted to voice how expensive rates are getting to travel on this toll highway. I have been taking this highway for over eight years. I used to take it both to and from work. Since it's so pricy these days, I only drive on it going to work. I didn't get to express the increase in rates and how I cannot afford to travel on it to and from work.

There were a series of questions where I had the option of rating the statement as great, somewhat great, somewhat poor, and poor. I said to this woman that I wished there was a rating between somewhat great and somewhat poor. She revealed that there was. What?

There is an apparent neutral option. She didn't disclose it until I had made my statement. As a person who declared math as a major and switched it to a minor during my undergraduate days, I was outraged. Why hide this option? You are skewing your survey results.

That's when I realized that this survey was biased.

She said later on that it would look bad to her manager if I answered a bunch of questions with a neutral response. I frankly told her that I didn't care what her manager thinks. I was here to voice my answers and I felt that this survey was rigged.

On a ballot, would you hide a candidate's name? Why would you hide a neutral option on a survey question?

To add insult to injury, she called me a "he" at the end of the survey, when we finally got there. I pointed out that she was rude. I made sure that I got my free kilometres of travel and hung up.

I like doing surveys, but I will never do one for 407 ETR again. The free kilometres isn't worth the insult, time, and aggravation.

Oh, and I disliked when she would say periodically to me, "Moving swiftly." Um, you aren't. You have spent twice as much time to get me through the survey than you had initially promised.

Ugh!