Wow! Where to start? Ok, I know some of the secretaries there personally, and some have been there for over 20 years. I would imagine that after answering the phone for so long you acquire some personal knowledge of halacha even if you are only a woman!
There is a well known Posek in Yerushalaim, whose wife actually answers many calls/shailos herself since she know knows after many years of marriage exactly how her husband has paskened on that exact shaila many times before.
Additionally, the secretaries at Star-K have a database of guidelines/list of product specification etc in front of them. If you call with a shaila that they've answered 100 times before and have clear guidelines in front of them written by the Rabbonim, do you really think they are incapable of giving over the Psak to you?
I don't know what your experience with a Rav was but most of the Rabbonim on their staff are regarded as world experts in their particular industries.
When people say that Star-K is a good place to call it's probably because aside from their reputaion, someone usually answers the phone on one of the first rings without a whole menu and hold times. When calling other places I've found myself on hold for a while, finally transferred to a 'man' because evidently they haven't trained their secretaries how to respond to common recurring shailos, and then put on hold by the Rav for a while.
Look, I don't live in Baltimore, so IDK who you know personally bla bla, I'm just a regular Joe Shmoe trying to find out the answers to my questions. I don't either know or care about a story of a nice rebitzin in EY or how long they work there for, what I can tell you is, that they were clueless yet STILL tried to answer my question.. Why do I have to plead to speak to a rabbi on staff who actually (was supposed to have) learnt Shu"a with it's commentaries (I'm sure the starK secretaries are very well versed in Mechaber, Ram'a, Sha"ch, Ta"z, Pri Megodim, Achronim etc., of course, of course)?
"I don't know what your experience with a Rav was but most of the Rabbonim on their staff are regarded as world experts in their particular industries."Allow me to just be open and finished, experience or not, those "Rabbonim" were clueless.. That is until I FINALLY reached Rabbi Rosen, who seemed very very knowledgeable, and was able to answer my questions at the blink of an eye!
Maybe by experts you mean Rabbi Heinaman, but I highly doubt he has an extension for Joe Shmoe to call and ask questions.
"When people say that Star-K is a good place to call it's probably because aside from their reputaion, someone usually answers the phone on one of the first rings without a whole menu and hold times. When calling other places I've found myself on hold for a while, finally transferred to a 'man' because evidently they haven't trained their secretaries how to respond to common recurring shailos, and then put on hold by the Rav for a while."Yeah yeah, I know exactly your probably referring to the OU, which is the ONLY hashgocho to have a Kashrus Hotline, with a "trained Rabbi" or whatever answering the calls (not secretaries who's job's are to write post-it notes)!
Though I do have the same complaint now as you, regarding the hold time etc.., this is a relatively new phenomenon, I think it's ever since they had this new guy take over, he's been very slow (someone should tell him). But the previous Rav on staff was very quick and answered Shaylos non-stop.
Disclaimer: I don't work for any hechsher, and I'm not in the food industry!
