Thank You For Remaining On Hold

Goddamn how I love interactive voice menus!

Why do I say this? because, right now I am on hold for an indeterminable length of time with the Massachusetts Department of Licensing.

"Thank you for holding. You call will be answered by the next available representative".

Bullshit. After twelve minutes I have been hung up on twice as the phone rang. Apparently someone there doesn't know how to answer the phone. Or, just doesn't want to answer the bloody thing. Okay, here we go again... will I be hung up on? Will I get through to someone? It's like playing Russian Roulette with a telephone...

Still waiting.

Still.....

Anyway, the point is just how frustrating phone menus can be. As I said, right now I'm on hold with MA, but I also have to deal with other State licensing bureaus as part of my job. Some are great! I just love getting through to one of the Southern states (GA, NC etc) and getting a breathy, young-sounding chick with that "Yes Y'all" drawl... But, you never know. I have tried to call the CA DOI before - their phone menu is a black hole. After about 15 minutes navigating my way through the menu, I finally realised there is not one option available to me that would allow the rational conversation between two human beings... At that point in my work career, my boss and other blowhards were breathing down my neck, trying to get me to speed up the licensing process of one of our sales managers. Try as I might to explain to them the vagaries of California's phone system, they just kept pushing and pushing me to get shit done.

Long story short, the license finally came through, but the people yomping at me to get it done never listened to my cautionary tales... Until, just a week or two ago, my boss decided to try and help me out and call CA about another manager (same kind of situation). Needless to say, I warned him, a couple of times, but in all his blow-hardery he just dismissed me and thought he was better.

Ha ha.

I still see the look on his face when he turned around to me after his first (and last) twenty minute interlude and, stammering, exclaimed how horrible California's menu was. I asked him if he ever talked to anyone (all the while chortling to myself), and he just sputtered away about how there "was no option... there was no option!!!".

Phone menus these days have gotten waaaaaay to complicated.

Thank you for call the Department of This and That. Please listen to the following options:

If you know your party's extension, please enter it now, followed by the pound sign.

If you don't know your party's extension, but would like to try and find it on our list, good fuckin' luck pal. The name may sound like Smith but is probably spelled with a silent "p" at the start, and has a "y" thrown in there for good measure. You'll never find the name, but you're welcome to try.

If you wish to speak to a representative from Blah Blah, please have your account number, PIN, mother's maiden name, breed of your neighbour's dog... no not that one, we mean the one that got run over by the milk truck. Yeah, that one.

If you would prefer to speak to a representative from the Flim Flam division, they're all out to lunch.

Please press 7, followed by the pund sign really really quickly if you'd like to be transferred to some motherfucker in Bombay who can barely speak English, is probably named Sitesh but will call himself "Chuck" just to make you more at ease. Once you get hold of Chuck, he will repeat your question incorrectly back to you then put you on hold. Again. And if, by chance he gets back to you, you will be accidentally hung up on.

Press 23. Why? We don't know. it's an option though.

For the Complaints Department, please send them an email. Which they won't answer.

If you would like to hear any of these menu options agai....click.

Yeah.

Unfortunately, the good old stand-by "If you are calling from a rotary phone, please stay on the line" is becoming about as rare as the Dodo these days.

Oooh! Oooh! I completely forgot about the ones that have you speak into them! Those are the fuckin' best!!! Because, as a guarantee, they won't understand you. And, knowing your luck, you've got a lisp. Walk away, pal!

Seems like we're stuck with it. And with the off-shoring of America, it's only going to get worse.