No compassion from telecoms provider

Our phone cable was in a roll on top of the grass verge across the road for years.  Everytime the phone went out, we'd contact Telstra and they would make us go through a lot of rigmarole before they'd log the job, and everytime it would be because something had gone through that cable - car, kangaroo, council slasher, fire.  Even the local techie officially requested it to be buried (after he had to pick a decomposing kangaroo off it).  It took years before someone finally recognised that it cost more to send someone out to fix it each time, than it did to just fix it properly.