Voices on the phone

I'm still waiting for my call to be answered. Phone resting against my shoulder, ear piece held in place. I hear three sets of sounds and am becoming acclimatised to them, a short extract of Mozart’s music, Horn Concerto I believe. Then a female voice recording cuts in and advises me of their advance purchase tickets. Information I don’t want to know about. More Mozart which drives me crazy. Then another voice recording, this time it’s a male voice, apologising for the delay because the lines are busy. These are the three sets of sounds I hear in rotation. Yet my mind silently wonders if they truly mean what they say. The music is meant to irritate, and it does so successfully. The woman’s voice about types of tickets I’ve never heard of is redundant information just to keep me glued to the phone, in case it was a real person. Then the man’s voice, although warm and pleasant is not apologising. He’s saying something quite different in between the script and some may not be able to interpret those words. I have though.

It’s along the lines of “We’re glad to keep you waiting, while your life passes away. As if you have nothing better to do. But we really don’t care, because at this moment 254 other people are wasting their lives as well. We’re happy to keep you stuck there with your full and undivided attention and we’ll endeavour to keep you on the phone as long as we can before answering. This way we can get additional revenues from your phone call to our service. Something we never write about in the small print. We have an arrangement with the Telecom’s operator. It’s very convenient. Though not for you. So just sit there and be as bored as you possibly can. We’ll keep you waiting and hopefully extract any notion of life beyond this phone call from your memory. You can therefore remain our servant until you fail to pay your phone call or collapse from dehydration or starvation or sleep deprivation. Yes we’re happy to be of service to you.”

So I learn my lesson again, never ring up during peak times and how I hate those recorded voices. Not the ones in my head, no, their my friends. Just the recorded ones.