42 Minutes and Holding
Last Thursday, I was on hold with HP for 55 minutes before I heard a live voice. Every minute or so, the lady would tell me how important my call was to her. I started to call her a lying whore out loud. Then there was the very loud music in between. I started to go mad.
So, this is the article on my desk this morning. My boss brought it in and it's from Readers Digest. Bless us all.
42 Minutes and Holding…..
Thank you for calling Customer Care. Your call is not as important to us as it is to you. If you are calling from a touch tone phone, press or say 1. If you are calling from a rotary dial phone, please stay on the line while a customer care representative makes fun of you. Para assistencia en espanol, go to South America and try your call again.
Your call may be monitored and/or recorded for staff entertainment purposes. For security reasons, please enter the last four digits of your junior high school locker combination.
To save us money and expedite the dismissal of customer care representatives, our express automated speech response system is now available. To use this system, press 1. To speak to a customer care representative, call the County Unemployment office. To hear these options again, hang up and call back.
Please say your 67 digit personal account number, located on the one page of your bill that has gone missing, followed by the pound sign. If you thought * was the pound sign, say Ding Dong.
I heard: 19548753698412579533984536812554789621488532197
40551040587631459620. If this is correct, say Yes. If this is not correct, it’s your fault. You are mumbling, or have a funny accent.
For payment information, say Payment. If you have calls and charges that you don’t understand, say Pinhead. To hear these options again, say Attention Span of a Gnat. To hear the call of the Long-Toed Stint, say Kirrrrrr-PIP wacka wacka wacka.
Our records show that a payment of $149 was posted August 23rd, following a 12 day processing period, during which time Accounts Receivable clerk June Smetak was unaccountably absent and consequently, your payment was recorded 6 days after the due date. A late fee of as much as we can get away with without government intervention has been posted to your account. June Smetak has been promoted. We know. Life isn’t fair.
To enter your 67 digit personal account number again for no special reason, press or say 1.
Please wait, a customer care representative will be with you shortly, or be short with you, or something. Calls will be answered in the order in which we feel like. You may hear clicks followed by silence. You may hear “I Love Rock-n-Roll” done entirely in strings. You may hear yourself say regrettable things, which may or may not be recorded.
For example, our records indicate that you used the phrase (Lying Whore) “gabling nitwit” during your last call to Customer Care. This has been noted in our record and will be reflected in the quality of service you receive and the tone of voice of the Customer Care Representative, should you somehow manage to reach one.
I’m sorry. 0 is not a valid prompt. Even if pushed furiously 11 times in rapid succession.
To use our express automated speech response system, press 1. To hear our website address, press 2. To speak with someone about how angry you are, press 3.
3 is not a valid prompt. Thank you for calling. Click.
