Nineteen Eighty-Bore

As part of all the stuff I've been doing re: our impending move, I've spent a number of hours on hold with various companies (mostly utilities that were as recently as twenty years ago part of the best infrastructure in the world, but have now been surpassed by those of all of our former cold-war allies) the last few days.

The whole being-on-hold-experience symbolizes all that is rotten in the soul of our once great Republic: (1) The Absolute Betrayal of the Promise of Techmology- Computers, the internets, and whatnot were supposed to be part of the science fiction future where we spend most of our time rock and rolling all night and partying every day while our robot servants make and serve tasty food and cordials. That is, the computational revolution was supposed to make things more convenient, easier if you will. But instead, it's just the opposite. The automatic answering systems are irritating, add to the amount of time until you actually get to a person that can help you, and increase the likelihood that you get sent to the wrong person and the cut off. They make life less convenient for the vast majority of people, science fiction be damned. (2) The Sovietization of American Society- The logic of authoritarianism entails that agents of the system tramp on the neck of the populace just because they can (see previous posts about that one French waiter). What other reason must there be for instituting the now universal system where you hear astoundingly irritating advertisements continuously while on hold? The ones that are strictly adds are for a company you are already using. The non strict-adds are almost universally efforts to get you to use the companies' web-site (see (1) above) for services you are not calling about. That is, you wouldn't be on hold waiting for a human being if you could have used their damned web site. So in both cases, the information is useless; ergo- it exists only to put you in your place (Q.E.D.). And it is very effectively designed to do so. You can't do anything useful like read a book while on hold, because every time the add interrupts the music, you don't know if it is going to be the real person to whom you are trying to talk. And the interruptions happen approximately every twenty seconds, over and over again. (3) The Illusion of Choice- Apologists for capitalism constantly subject the rest of us to econiums concerning the massive, unimaginable amount consumer freedom with which we are blessed. If the United States is supposed to be anything for these people, it is the varieties of consuming experience made flesh. But this is a ridiculous lie. We don't get the choice to hear hold music not interrupted by the peppy, brain damaged/damaging, advertisements. We don't get a choice to have companies not force us to whittle away hours of our life on hold. For that matter, we don't get the choice to reject a state that privileges tax cuts so much over public infrastructure that the electrical grid fails catastrophically every winter in the Northeast-Midwest and every summer storm season in the American South. No, that's just the way it is, and voting for Obama or McCain isn't going to change it one whit. The only choice we get is to complain about it on a blog, so one of your friends who doesn't care about the future of our Republic says, "You're like an unfunny version of Andy Rooney." (4) The Arbitrariness of It All- In every single one of the companies I've dealt with, once I got to talk ot a person, I was put on hold again while they were helping me. But the hold music while you are talking with someone (as opposed to the interminable period before you get to a real human) does not have the advertisements inserted within. Why is it one way before you are talking to a person, and a different way once you have talked to a person? There is no rational reason for the difference. Yet it is universal. As George Bush is fond of saying, we are all existentialists now.

Comments

[Mark Silcox]

While you're still on hold, here's a spectacularly depressing article to read on similar topics:

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Four-reasons-Americas-drive-longer/story.aspx?guid={1FE4B90E-4DDA-438F-92D1-D3B1FE0468C3}&siteid=yhoofront

[Neal Hebert]

As annoying as this may sound, I've determined that the ads for the Web site are featured because the vast majority of users call about things that can be fixed by using the web but don't know it. Baby boomers significantly outnumber everyone else, and the Internet is still new to them.

-neal

[Jon Cogburn]

But those people are too technologically illiterate to use the web-page anyhow.

So my conclusion still stands. The function of the adds are not to provide information or get people to use the companies' products. They are to oppress the general populace (or that portion thereof that uses things like electricity, water, gas, garbage collection, telephone, internet, etc.) See the relevant passages in 1984 on the real point of torture.

[Neal Hebert]

But they're actually not, Jon. Most of the Web troubleshooting guides on these types of Web sites amount to really simple instructions that anyone can follow. Someone not being aware of Web troubleshooting doesn't mean that they're ill-equipped to follow the trouble-shooting instructions.

If you know anyone who's actually worked in customer service for some of these companies and ask them - I don't know, like maybe Skylar - they can tell you that the vast majority of calls received can and would be solved via the Internet if the customers would actually listen to the automated instructions. Their refusal to do so is what makes you have to wait.

I mean, if you really want to feel aggrieved by this then feel free. But there are so many other meaningful parallels to 1984 in corporatist America that dwelling on this one seems like a missed opportunity.

[Mark Silcox]

I'm on Jon's side about this one. Before the web was a practicably useful medium, companies still had customer service centers - centers at which their employees were paid better (given the real value of minimum wage back then, anyhow), knew more, and had no choice but to help absolutely everybody who called. And yet such companies still (usually) managed to turn a profit!

So where is all the extra money going now? Either into some vile cocksack's bank account or else down the giant black hole that his investment bank just vanished into.

[Jon Cogburn]

Two things- (1) I think the difference on this is generational. Mark and I remember the end of the period when United States infrastructure was still the best in the world. Being on hold, flying, driving, using utilities, etc. really was very nice in the 1970s in the United States; much nicer than in the rest of the world. Now all of these things are much worse both than they used to be here and than they now are in all western European and most Asian countries. We are even behind in internet and cellphone connectivity now. This is generally pathetic, but much more so if you were sentient in the 1970s.

(2) If the post fails at anything it fails as a piece of humor, and unless you are using a subtle form of dialectical jujitsu, your earnestness makes me think you are not critiquing it for failing on those grounds. On the other hand you could be presupposing that over-counterfactuality makes something unfunny, and then explicitly arguing that the post is too counterfactual. Or (and this is consistent with the jujitsu hypothesis) maybe you are drawing me into this debate here, which illustrates that the piece is trying too hard to make a point, which is almost always aesthetic death. Ouch. I find myself hurling across the room, the momentum of my own attack propelling me towards a hasty meeting with the wall.