Hanging On The Telephone

 Hold.

You've been there. It's a lonely place. That's why they play music. Not good music. Not the kind of music that makes you want to tap your feet, except in anticipation. Plus it comes through the speaker in your phone in that moderately distorted way that makes it hard to listen to even if you were a fan of easy-listening elevator music. If I were subjected to the playlist from the hold music on an elevator, I would take the stairs. 

Instead, we are trapped, trying to listen with just the vaguest attention as periodic lies are dropped into the lull about how many more minutes you might be stranded. "Your estimated hold time for the next agent is (four) minutes." The number can be anything from one to a hundred, but it has obviously been cut and pasted amid the rest of the noise to give one the feeling that something has changed.

But nothing has. 

You're still on hold. 

These days there are some new announcements interspersed within that bed of obnoxious instrumental pap. Reminders that things are different because of the global pandemic and that wait times may be increased. "Your average wait time can range between (infinity) and (forever)." Then you can be assured that your call if very important and it "will be answered in the order in which it was received." There will be no cutting. 

Meanwhile, you are reminded that there are online avenues to attempt to repair or refine your experience. By using chat features or the Frequently Asked Questions section on their web site. No matter that it is the broken web site or the faulty information you are calling about. Feel free to go and yell at a wall while you're at it. That will do about as much good. 

And as the mild torment continues, the free-floating anxiety that may have brought you to this place initially is only enhanced by this lack of knowing what will happen next, and each pause in that godawful music is accompanied with the feverish anticipation usually reserved for the announcement of the last song by the opening band. 

And then it just goes on.

And on. 

You might forget why you called.

You might just hang up out of spite.

Which means somewhere there is someone else who is suddenly moved up that incremental notch toward speaking to an actual human being. Or maybe there is just a room somewhere that the phone elves sit around sipping cappuccinos and watching the numbers of calls reach some impossible level before settling in and deigning to answer our calls.

Until they ask us if we would like to speak to another department, to be sure we get the service we need. Do you mind if we put you on hold for just a minute?

Don't do it.