Putting Callers on Hold Is a Phony Excuse

Several readers agree with me that being forced to listen to music on the telephone while you wait for a human answer is maddening, even if the music happens to be a pleasant Mozart sonata.

Lee Bonetti, director of Career Support Services, sends a cartoon that illustrates the most extreme result of this practice. It shows a skeleton slumped over a desk, while from a fallen telephone comes the message: “Thank you for holding!”

I complained specifically about being unable to reach my doctor’s office. I suggested that listening to music while you waited would be less frustrating if they gave you periodic reports on where you stood: “Thank you for waiting. You are now No. 12.” And so on.

Evidently, as usual, I am behind the times.

Cindy Nadler of Glendale reports that Arizona State University does just that. “I called the financial aid department there a few days ago and received, in this order (1) a recording informing me of some basic financial aid questions, with a number to push for a quick answer to each question, and a promise for a return to the main ‘menu’ at my request; (2) an apology for being put on hold; (3) ‘Star Wars’ music (the theme); (4) a nice voice informing me what my position in line was; and then return to ‘Star Wars.’ I was kept up-to-date on my position in line every few minutes until my call was first, and then was answered .”

Sounds very sophisticated. However, I don’t know that I could take that much of the theme from “Star Wars.”

Duke Russell says he once phoned a mortuary to ask the time and place of a friend’s funeral and was put on hold with “The Hawaiian Wedding Song.”

Meanwhile, D. Arnold, a legal secretary, points out the opposite side of the coin: the busy lawyer (or lawyer’s secretary) who is constantly interrupted by the telephone when he is trying to get his work done-- your work done.

“The telephone is a fine and important instrument of communication,” Arnold says. “It also can be an intrusion and people tend to take advantage of it. If you want something from a professional--any kind of professional--somehow they must have time to do the work. How can they do the work if they are always on the telephone?”

Walter W. Cook of Yucca Valley wants to know why the person who telephones has priority over the person who has come to the lawyer’s office, or the doctor’s office, and is standing right there before him.

“I too have listened to music until my arm turned numb from holding the phone,” he says, “but an even more frustrating experience is patiently waiting my turn in line at a store, bank or doctor’s office only to have the phone ring just as I become numero uno.

“Just like a monkey trained to reach for the banana when the light goes on, the person I have so patiently waited to talk to immediately grabs the phone without a thought of how rude it is to allow this person on the telephone to elbow their way to the head of the line without waiting at all by merely dialing a number from the relative obscurity and comfort of their home.”

I sympathize. Many times I have been sitting in my doctor’s examining room, stripped to my shorts, only to have him excuse himself to answer a call from some hypochondriac who was doubtless sitting up in bed with a vodka tonic and complaining about a tummy ache. It’s the tyranny of the telephone.

Dirck Z. Meengs, a man of Dutch origin, reports that on his visits to the crowded Netherlands he has found a number of “people-sensitive” advances that make him wonder, “Why can’t we do that?”

Busy lines are answered, “Your call will be answered in the turn received; there are 12 people waiting. There are 11 people waiting, and so on.”

Currency has a number of raised dots so blind persons can tell the denomination of each bill. The trains run on time.

“Why can’t we do that?” he asks. “Perhaps it is because when we ask the question, no one listens.”

One thing I think I’ve learned. I will never call my doctor again unless I’m dying. I just hope I don’t get “Star Wars.”