While it may be a small matter for all you offshore people, my penn’orth focuses on the infuriating difficulty of getting reliable communication between cockpit and cabin. Depending upon the capacity of a competent crew-member to cycle a cockpit call switch in the cabin is one thing but depending upon a passenger, no matter how well briefed, is another matter entirely.
Getting a passenger to press a switch that sounds a cockpit-call chime is one thing, but why on earth was it necessary to have that switch as one part of a two-part switching action required to connect front to rear.
I don’t care what the signal might be – a chime in my headset, a tap on the shoulder, a delicate, or even indelicate touch of an umbrella under my left ear, frantic waving of a headset in the cabin – as long as, upon receipt of that signal, it remains only for me, the pilot, to press a single switch to carry out a single switching action to activate the ICS connection to the cabin.
Having paid for their expensive BOSE headsets, I should have thought the passengers might at least be entitled to be able to have a little civil conversation with the pilot from time to time rather then to be addressed imperiously through the PA. If I don't want to or can't talk to them at any time, I only need to wave them away for a few minutes, it's not bloody rocket science!