Chapter 96: Please Hold... Whilst We Push You Over The Edge

I am on a serious rampage to complain about shitty 0800/0845/0300 and the rest of these numbers who keep you on hold, for what seems like your lifetime. Raise your hand if you would rather stick a pin in your eye than listen to shitty hold music whilst you are trying to prepare yourself for a telephone battle to argue your point as to why you have been charged for something unnecessarily? I can already feel a Mexican Wave of hands raising as you read this.

I have had my fair share of hold calls in recent month's, one being from my car insurance company who not only falsely set me up to believe I have recovery cover when I had my car written off back in May, but they also proceeded to leave me feeling stressed over trying to sort out my cover and claims documents, which seemed to feel like I was being tortured. Tortured with this music nonetheless:

Little things CLEARLY don't mean a lot to you eejits!

The amount of stress my insurers put me through after my accident through phone calls alone was actually obscene. So I'm sure you will all agree with me in the following list I have provided which highlights ALLLLL the things that piss me off with unknown numbers and being on hold:

1. PPI calls - when you answer the phone to that unknown number knowing it's going to be something stupid but you answer it anyway, only to hear a long pause and an automated voice saying, "Have you been in an accident in the past 6 months?" No I fucking haven't and where on earth have you got my number from, jackass?
2. When an actual person rings you asking the above. You really don't want to be arsey, but you just can't help it and especially if you are waiting for an important call. Then you feel a little bad after because at the end of the day... it's their day job!
3. When you make a call to enquire about something minor, e.g. something to do with your phone contract, and they say, "Hi can I have your account details, your security password, your first pet's name, the exact time you grew your first pube... great. How can I help you? Oh yes that's the contract department, let me put you through...""Hi can I have you account details, your security password, your first pet's name, the exact time you grew your first pube.." WHAT THE ACTUAL EFF!! I JUST SAID ALL OF THIS, NUMB SKULL!!!!!!!
4. When they ask you to spell out your name but you have to spell it in the Phonetic Alphabet and you forget and you're like, "P for Potato, A for Arsehole, T for Twat, R for Rat's Arse, I for Icky, C for Crusty, I for Icky, A for Arsehole." And they're like, "I'm sorry I didn't get that?"
5. When they ask for your secret password and they're like "I'm sorry your secret password is that fucking secretive that YOU don't fucking know it. Call back when you do and wait in line for another 9 years."
   
6. When the automated robot that speaks to you prior to going through an adviser asks your name and you're like, "Patricia Baxter" and they're like, "Morticia Bastard?" and you're like, "PATRICIA BAXTER" and they're like "Moesha Baster?" FUCK YOU!!
7. "Hi, you can been placed on hold... let me play you some shit music in the meantime so you might jump off a cliff instead of us having to do our job and deal with your bullshit."
8. When you receive a fine (even though you actually were in your time at the car park, or did in fact pay that toll in advance) and you have to go through the whole rigmarole of going against it, but it is far quicker to call them (or so you think). Failing that, the second quickest thing to do is email (or so you think). Failing that you resort to sending the form... which then results in you missing the time when your fine would have cost £35 but now it costs £70. Might as well have sent fucking smoke signals to say "You're all robbing bastards. The End."
9. When you get a new car and the key they have given you is faulty, so you order a new one on pick up and they say it will be 2 weeks and they will drop it to your location and then 2 weeks has passed and it isn't at your location and you park outside of work at a £7 a day car park only for them not to show up 2 out of the 3 times and on the 3rd time they give you another spare key even though you have one and the original spare is now no longer configured to your car so you have to spend another 2 hours of your life on the phone to Bob demanding you get reimbursed for the several times you parked outside and they never showed ONLY for them to not even do that on time so you have to ring them again because they aren't responding to your emails... Can you tell this happened to me? And this was just to get a hoop attached to the fucking key so I could attach it to my key rings. I could have resurrected a Greek God who specialist in metal work to make me one quicker.
10. When they ask you to fill out a survey of how you found the experience and the option to say "I will never get them two hours of my life back" isn't on there...

Think Amy Schumer sums it up with this skit on her show on Comedy Central:

Let us know your 'hold' stories by responding to the back of this blog post, visiting my Facebook or tweeting me @triciabaxter. In the meantime, I think this little number suits to tone of this blog...

If only all calls went like this:

P.S. Just one more to throw in... If you're ringing up a company to complain, say, "I'm sorry can you just call my number out to me? Great can you ring me back?" Eases the pain of watching paint dry I guess...
Oh and also... If you're told you're gonna get a Teddy Meerkat... make sure you feckin get one!

I'll leave you with this:

Bizzle.
T.x