An infallible system for dealing with telephone call centre frustration.

Call centres. What a triumph of 21st century triumph. I relish each and every opportunity to get in touch. Over time I’ve developed an infallible system. here’s a call I made earlier today as an example.

Fifteen rings, then a metallic voice offers me a choice of five options. Great. I love choices. I press three, although any of them will be as good as any other. I wait another thirty seconds before a (different) android asks me for another option, only two this time. Hmm, not as good as last time. I take the safe route, pick three again. I know.

Another brief pause. 42 seconds, but who’s counting?

Suddenly, makes me jump, music kicks in. Oh, good!  If I really concentrated, perhaps I would manage to identify the melody in the time I spend waiting for a human voice to come on the line. I screwed my eyes up and listened furiously. No bloody idea.

Who chooses this stuff ? Presumably there were copyright issues involved, meaning someone had shelled out money for the right to take a perfectly good tune and turn it into unrecognisable mush. The piece came to an end, still unidentified, and an up-tempo number kicked in, all jangling chords and manic bursts of noise. I decided I’d listen harder. Why not? Nothing better to do. The first hint of a melody flicked at the edge of my brain and then clicked into place. The Girl from Ipanema, as I’d never heard it before.

I tried singing along. No chance. “Tall and tanned and young and lovely”; wasn’t that the line? It didn’t fit. Not in this version anyway. I dropped the phone in my lap and pulled faces at it for a good thirty seconds. This system has worked in the past. Not today as when I picked it up again, the Girl from Ipanema was still walking.

Time for the crucial phase, this one never fails: I remove the phone from my ear, clench my eyes tight shut and say “fuck off” very clearly and distinctly  into the mouthpiece. When I  return the phone to my ear there’s a dull empty silence on the line.

“Hello?” a voice says at last, managing to convey doubt and no small degree of alarm within the confines of the single word.

“Hello,” I answer, striving for a neutral tone with bright and breezy elements mixed in. “Sorry. I think we had a crossed line just then.”

Result!