Dear LPG,

Time was when we were forced to spend hours on the phone listening to classical, contemporary or electronic compositions for much, much longer than is good for us.  Over the years we have all become used to phoning companies and government departments where we are greeted with such music which I find annoying to say the least although I have to agree with HL, who pointed out one of the best pieces to listen to, if you have to, in an LPG article written about three years ago now (►►►).    

I find myself in perfect agreement, but now we are used to the music, there are the other messages which interrupt it.  Perhaps one of the friendliest and yet most frustrating of these messages are the ones that tell you your progress.  I have to admit that knowing what number you are in the queue can sometimes be encouraging. 

Being number 1, 2 or 3 can give that hope and encouragement needed to get the caller to hang on because with only two in front of you, there is a little hope, while being numbered in the teens gives some encouragement too.  This sort of gap leaves a little time to prepare exactly what you want to say and do a little repetition practise so that you get it right ‘on the night’ so to speak.

During a recent phone call, I was informed that I was ‘number 63 in the queue’, which resulted in an involuntary raising of my eyebrows, but on that occasion the warning and self- projected hour or more that I would need to wait as the number in the warning decreased did leave me time to do quite a few things whilst listening to the recording.  I suppose I felt that I had been warned and, without the extra anxiety of knowing that I might be in the middle of doing something that requires a serious bit of concentration once you hear that real person say ‘can I help you?’ I would be able to hang on and do something meaningful and fairly time-consuming simultaneously.  But I also remembered that when I was a telephone customer service advisor back in the day,  I would only be required to offer that initial message twice before ‘cutting off’ and ‘moving on’ while leaving the client with countless lost minutes, or even hours forever, having followed TF’s advice  (►►►)  ,unless you have the strength of mind to start all over again! 

Having spent at least ten minutes being raised to the status of ‘50^th in the queue’, I decided that I must have had at least half an hour on my hands and embarked on another of those tasks that frustrates us ladies because of a that sitting and waiting aspect of it.  Having finished the deed, the warnings offered a serious drop in numbers and within a second ten-minute period I was answered, causing frustration because the time had gone so quickly that my attempts at capitalising in on some enforced waiting time failed miserably.

Can you guess what I had opted to do?  The answer was my finger nails. Don’t ask about the smudge on my right thumb nail.  These telephone people never get it right!

AR, Catford.