Semi-OT: Hold music

[johnchop]

I've been on hold for 8 minutes now.

 

The same 5 chords and low effort drum riff repeated over and over.

 

People give accordion music a lot of grief, but this... this is hell.

 

I hope this isn't my last post.

[David Emm]

Reviling hold music is only natural, but its not just the music; its the EQing I hate most. It seems specifically designed to walk on my eardrums with cleats. Its two steps away from a loop of a screaming toddler. Punishing the customer for attempting to do business with you would seem to be contraindicated....

[KuruPrionz]

I had to call CenturyLInk as part of my job, there was a malfunctioning elevator emergency phone line at one of our Associations that I needed to get fixed.

 

I forget what the hold music was but it was hideous. Worse yet, every 30 seconds or so a canned message would come on - "Your call is very important to us, please stay on the line and our next available subhuman slime weasel will be with you shortly."

Then the music would start over from the beginning. After a few repetitions, I tried pressing O since sometimes that forces an actual human to respond. Another canned voice came on and said "If you'd like to speak to an imbecile, say the word "representative" and we'll get one on the line." So I said "representative" loudly and clearly and the voice of Satan said "I'm sorry, I did not understand that, if you would like to speak to a moron, say the word "representative, and we'll get one on the line."

I tried one more time, same thing.

 

I hung up, tried a different number and after wading through about 5 messages that more or less said "Thank you for your call, here at CenturyLink, we despise all of our customers equally but you most of all, please stay on the line until your rotting corpse drops the receiver", I got an actual living, breathing human who had no idea what I was talking about and demanded to know my account number (this was not my account and i did not have the number). I persisted and eventually they sent out a technician, who declared that they'd tested their lines and those were OK, therefore call the elevator company...

 

I love the so much, dying in a fire would be too swift and painless for all of them.

At least the elevator company has a 24/7 emergency repair line staffed by knowledgable humans who answer the phone! They are going to replace the obsolete phone with a fully functional new system, which somehow takes a couple of weeks.

Stairs may be treacherous but they rarely break down.

[stoken6]

Reviling hold music is only natural, but its not just the music; its the EQing I hate most. It seems specifically designed to walk on my eardrums with cleats.

Surely an artefact of the 8-bit/8khz sampling rate - a natural limitation of the 64kbit/s bandwidth of a standard telephone line?

 

Cheers, Mike.

[David Emm]

Reviling hold music is only natural, but its not just the music; its the EQing I hate most. It seems specifically designed to walk on my eardrums with cleats.

Surely an artefact of the 8-bit/8khz sampling rate - a natural limitation of the 64kbit/s bandwidth of a standard telephone line?

 

Cheers, Mike.

 

It takes a colossal dump on the string section, that's for sure .

[Mjazz]

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