You are the next caller

We’ve all been there. Whether you’re calling about your broken kitchen appliance, your extended warranty, or that porn flick (er, adult film) charge on your cable bill, all of us, at one point or another, have had to wait on hold.

Obviously no one likes to be left on hold, but there are things that the company in question can do to make the experience less painful, i.e. kill the elevator music or, oh yeah, add more freaking operators so that the average wait time isn’t 12 minutes and 17 seconds just to ask a couple of simple questions to someone who probably won’t even be able to help you.

The other day, I called a certain company and after a series of rings, received an automated message of “Your call is very important to us. Please stay on the line, and the next available operator will assist you shortly. Thank you for your patience.”

Needless to say, I wasn’t surprised. After all, this was the official “wait on hold” comfort speech. (Though it would be funny if one day you were to call one of these places and instead get, “Your call means very little to us, and we’re still going to get paid for dealing with these other idiots whether or not you stay on the line. The next available operator will have no choice but to answer your call shortly, though we must warn you, we’re not the brightest bunch, and there’s a strong possibility that speaking to one of us might only serve to aggravate you even more. We thank you for your patience, though really, you should be thanking us for our patience since we have to deal with people like you day in, day out. Here’s a clue buddy: your blender won’t work because it’s not plugged in. See that thing that sticks out the back of the blender that’s got that other thing called a cord attached to it? Yeah, that’s the plug. It goes in an outlet. Once you make that happen, your stupid blender will work, so you can make all of the mid-day frozen margaritas you like while the rest of us are stuck here answering questions for idiots like you. Sure, we might not be so smart ourselves, but at least we’ve mastered the art of blending. Oh, and have a nice day.”)

Anyway, there I was, preparing myself to wait on hold for an extended period of time, when seconds later, I heard an automated voice break the wait-time silence by informing me of the following: “You are the fifth caller in line.”

Okay, I thought. There’s a potentially useful piece of information. Good to know. Thanks, computer lady.

About three seconds later, my new automated friend broke through again. “Your wait time to speak with an agent is…7 minutes, 4 seconds.”

Wow – helpful information again. I mean, for a second there, I was actually impressed. Now that I knew what sort of wait time I could anticipate, I was free to make the most of the next 7 minutes and 4 seconds. As my mind began to contemplate all of the marvelous things I could do with that time (make breakfast, answer some emails, take a nice, big - never mind), my computerized friend appeared again to snap me out of my reverie.

“Your wait time to speak with an agent is…6 minutes, 52 seconds.”

Sure, that made sense. Now where was I? Oh right, back to thinking about ways to spend my wait time…

“Your wait time to speak with an agent is…6 minutes, 44 seconds.”

Okay. You did just say that, more or less.

“Your wait time to speak with an agent is…6 minutes, 36 seconds.”

What the f***?

“Your wait time to speak with an agent is…6 minutes, 31 seconds.”

Stop it! I’m aware of my wait time! I know how to count.

“Your wait time to speak with an agent is…6 minutes, 27 seconds.”

This was getting really annoying, really quickly. And so the system became abundantly clear. Apparently, my computerized friend was going to break in every 4 to 6 seconds and update me on the status of my wait time. This was the company’s cruel way of getting back at people like me who bought a blender in good faith and simply wanted to understand why it sometimes didn’t blend. If only there was a secret code you could enter that would let them know “Hey, I’m not the idiot who can’t find the wall plug; I’m an educated consumer with a faulty product.” Maybe then they’d bump you up in priority, or at least spare you from having to listen to your updated wait time every 4 freaking seconds.

This is just a classic example of a good idea gone wrong. Instead of having a one-time, or even the occasional wait time update, this company had to overcompensate for its lack of operators by making sure that the customer on hold would, at no time, be truly left in the dark.

Of course, as I got closer towards the end of my wait time, the updates became more and more frequent.

“Your wait time to speak with an agent is…1 minute, 14 seconds.”

“Your wait time to speak with an agent is…1 minutes, 11 seconds.”

By the time I got down to the very last minute, the computer lady was updating herself so fast that she didn’t even have time to get the full sentences out.

“Your wait time to speak with an agent is…42 seconds”

“Your wait time…40 seconds.”

“Wait…38 seconds.”

“36 seconds.”

“35 seconds.”

“34 sec-“

“33!”

“32!”

Want to know the ironic thing? By the time we got down to “1 second,” I was all nice and prepared to give my faulty blender speech, but instead of reaching an operator, I got an all-too familiar mantra.

“Your call is very important to us. Please stay on the line, and the next available operator will assist you shortly. Thank you for your patience.”

To make a long story less long, my semi-working blender is now sitting in my kitchen trash can, and I’ve got plans to go out and buy a new one. Some battles just aren’t worth fighting.