By Jay Jamison
I can make money, then lose it all, and then make money again, replacing the money I’d blown. I can replace all the food and beverages I store in my refrigerator — in fact, I do that again and again on a weekly basis. If my car dies or is in a wreck, it’s replaceable. If a flood or fire destroys a home or business, those losses can be made whole again, whether they are insured or not, because the possibility of recovery still exists. One thing that cannot be replaced is time.
That final thought was running through my mind as I sat with a phone to my ear, listening to elevator music, waiting for the next available customer service representative. “Your call is important to us,” repeats the scratchy recording. These marvels of technology sure seem to waste great stretches of that one commodity that cannot be replaced. When I think of the number of hours I’ve spent on the phone waiting for the next representative, I wish there was some way to be compensated for my lost time. Some government agencies and companies give you the option of a call back, if you’ll just leave them your number.
When will they call you back? When the next representative is available, which probably means when it’s least convenient. How inconvenient? Think of those times when the server comes to your table in a restaurant just after you’ve taken a huge bite of something delicious and asks if everything is OK. I often give a response something like, “Mphumph, grathphph,” with a head nod to get the point across, hoping that I won’t need the Heimlich maneuver because of the sudden, unexpected question. Yeah, that kind of inconvenience.
Here are some tips about activities to avoid while waiting for the time-saving phone call: Don’t climb ladders, don’t take a shower, don’t mow the lawn, don’t run the vacuum cleaner, don’t watch movies, don’t begin culinary projects involving complicated recipes and don’t go to the bathroom … that last one, guys, may elicit remarks from the next available customer service representative, like, “What’s that? I can’t hear you. Is it raining?”
“No, I just happened to be draining my car’s radiator.”
When you’re doing your business while you’re on the phone, you are essentially multi-tasking, trying to make up for time lost while you had been waiting for the next available representative. But the time lost, is irretrievably lost. Of course, you may ignore my short list of tips, and then miss the time-saving return call — which may mean more time blown trying to get through to an actual human being with another call. This will probably entail going through the endless menu, and you must listen carefully because some options may have changed: “To pay your bill, press one; to donate to ‘save the arachnids’, press two; to access our accounting department, press three; to access our cheerful P.R. department, press four.” Options may vary, but by the time I’m told about option five or six, I’m ready to enter my preference with a ball peen hammer. The last suggested option is usually the one you wanted all along, to speak with the next available customer representative, a human being.
