On Hold

Clint Eastwood got it wrong. It isn't Halftime in America. Not even close. America is ON HOLD.

"Your call is very important to us." "Press 1 for Directory Assistance." "Due to heavier than usual call volume . . . " "This call may be recorded for quality assurance." That last one is a crock of woo if there ever was one. If calls were actually being recorded to improve quality, why doesn't the quality ever improve?

No living person ever answers a telephone these days, only robots with pre-recorded voices and no ears.

Recently my AOL account was hacked and it has not been a good experience. In fact, I was really hacked off by the whole thing and remain that way. The results that are known so far, is that they made two computers terminally ill, used a credit card and compromised my Wells Fargo account. We used to have a great independent little bank in Jackson Hole that I loved, but unfortunately, it got crushed by a run away stage coach. I was heartsick. The original bankers were our friends and they always answered their phones in person, and they even invited us to their homes. Then my five digit account number became twice as long, and the level of customer service practically disappeared.

My recent stage coach calamity was caused by the big hat drivers letting some crooks and imposters order checks from my account and have them shipped to a different address, in a different state and they even changed the telephone number. How does that happen without notification to the account holder? Next, shady characters tried to cash the bogus checks in California and Virginia, but the person they were asking to cash the check got suspicious. Thank heavens! Then just try to talk to somebody at the bank about it. Every time you actually get a real person, after waiting forever in a holding pattern, it is not the right office/department/location, etc. When your ear gets really hot, and you are tired of listening to elevator music, or something worse, or when you can't wait any longer to run to the bathroom, you give up and then hang up. Now, that is no doubt what they were hoping you would eventually do. And you are forced to choose that option because their menu options have drastically changed.

And it isn't just Wells, I must point out to be perfectly fair. It is every place you try to contact by phone these days. The doctors office gives you numeric choices for the reason you are calling, so does the drug store, your cable provider, the local library, and the neighborhood pizza joint, just to name a few.

Here's a novel idea to create jobs, reduce America's stress level and improve productivity and customer service. Hire people to answer telephones all across the U S of A. Just like in the good old days. Train those folks to properly direct incoming calls and answer questions relative to the business where they are working. Just think, if every office in every town in every state chose this way to run their business . . . . oh but that's way too drastic a move. That would be way more change than we should hope for. Silly me!