Office Perks: Oh, The Places You’ll Go. On Hold.
In only a few short quickly-passing, time-devouring* weeks, while waiting for various persons to pick up on their ends of the line, I’ve been treated to Traditional Classical, Something That Sounds Remarkably Like Polka, and the rare and delightful office boasting bad 90’s soft rock. Re-entering Le Office Space, I was almost instantly reminded of the delightful variety of hold music chosen by offices throughout the world to entertain their callers, or, most likely, and sometimes a little too obviously, as a desperate attempt to distract their patients from remembering they are out of their respective medications, and probably have called eight times already today. And also, for good measure? They are probably riding the Train O’ Crazy.
There are the hold queues that so efficiently distract you into singing along to Wilson Phillips that you blissfully forget why you were calling in the first place, and anyway, I know that there is pain, but you hold on for one more day, and you break free, break from the chains.
And then there are the hold queues that seemingly send you to a deserted Siberian mountain summit to sit in silence and ponder your place in the universe and, more importantly, what your great great great uncle’s initials REALLY stood for, because ever since you failed to unearth such earth-shattering details of your family history during your Genealogy Project in seventh grade you’ve wondered and couldn’t stop yourself from plugging in various ridiculous potential monikers for a man you always imagined to be tall and broodingly handsome to make up for the fact that his parents named him, simply, A.B. (As a small consolation during said project you did discover you aren’t related to Napoleon, and that the problem you faced as a child, you know the one about your pores being large enough to swallow a small schooner? They can almost surely be attributed to genetics. (Thanks! great great great grandma).
But the golden ticket for the best* hold queue recording, to date, has to be awarded to the business who today treated me to this gem of a message:
“Hello, and thanks for calling Dr. So and So’s Office. We are located on Such and Such Street, Near Such and Such Place. We are frequently visited by wildlife, and by mother deer with their young, stopping to drink at our pond.”
I suppose it’s not an altogether unoriginal marketing strategy.
“Clearly, Bob, as you can see from the graphs here, quality of care=number of wildlife visits, especially if by ‘number of wildlife visits’ you don’t ever mean ‘cougars, who are hungry.’”
*And by “quickly-passing, time-devouring” I mostly mean “literally, eating all of my time like a hungry hungry hippo eats marbles that surely most be covered in invisible vegetation otherwise why would a hippo eat a marble?” I also mostly mean “wonderful”; the job, it is still wonderful. Unless you count the day I stubbed my toe on the copier.
**You didn’t think it could get better than Wilson Phillips, did you? I know. Me, either.
I hate making phone calls that when I’m on hold for so long I forget where I call. Or when I have to listen to it over head on Muzac and then hear it playing in my ear while on hold. Like once isn’t bad enough. There are times when I want to take the pen I’m holding and ram it into my ear. Or my eye.
Deer… how pleasant… sigh…. wait, why was I surfing the internet again? Damn distractions!
Yeah, being on hold sucks… but you should be happy if they play some funny music, sometimes they make you fall asleep by repeating “useless” information over and over *g*
Oh, that’s hilarious! Our office had some jungle soundtrack for hold music for awhile. I know, right?! Everytime I’d pick up when someone had been on hold, they’d be like, “What in the name of God…?!”
Yes, cougars stopping by a medical office because they are hungry would not do much for business.
P.S. My mom wants you to call her.
what IS it about wilson phillips? one cannot turn the radio down when they come on as much as it seems logical and right to do so.
“We’re so gentle that even deer aren’t afraid of us”. Actually, that might work for a dentist’s office.
okay - - I don’t know if it’s cuz we’re in the midst of spring or what, but the blogging around ‘here’ (here, meaning my favorite bloggers–including YOU) has slowed to slug speed… what up?
lay off all those wedding plans and post, dammit
(all meant in the most playful manner possible, of course - - so write dammit, write!)
I need to know that business number. I think that I need to be put on hold to something interesting once in a while…
yoooo-hoooo? Have they stashed you in the dungeon at this new job of yours?
One time I was so into a song on my Dr’s hold thingy (thingy is the technical term; it is, really). I was singing along and the receptionist answered, and I know her well. I was so very embarrassed. She was laughing so hard, and still brings it up from time to time. This was about 2 years ago!
Stop by if you can, I have 2 new posts up, and there is some changes goin’ on!
I get put on hold pretty much everyday with our main lab, and I can hum the hold music from memory. It’s your basic elevator type, but not even… fun. Anyway, much to my amazement, the other day I saw a commercial and I… knew the music. I was humming along to it. Guess what? It’s our hold music! haha.
I consider very few things worth waiting on the phone for while being forced to listen to someone else’s horrible taste in music, overly loud, and the announcement every 8 seconds that my call is important to them and the next available customer disservice person will be with me shortly.
I know they’re lying. They know they’re lying. So why do we have to do this stupid and enraging little dance?
Why don’t they just tell me upfront that they don’t give a shit about me or my problem, even though it was caused by them or their product, and they’ll get to me, if at all, when they damn please. I appreciate honesty.
KERRI! you there? everything ‘kay? hope you’re just too busy planing youknowwhat. but… i miss you :( *smoochie*
uh-oh… where’d Kerri go? Hope you’re blissfully buried with wedding plans and the new jobby-job, is all!
Dude. You’ve abandoned us.
WHERE ARE YOU? I can only assume deep in the throes of wedding stuff. Hope all is well.
okay now- - I’m getting worred now… I hope you’re just drowning in wedding plans and the demands of your new job, right? come back soon!