(idea) by moJoe Fri Sep 15 2000 at 3:06:14
Being a "Support Technician" by profession, I have the opportunity to chat it up with some of the biggest numskulls to ever have dropped from the womb to infest this planet.
Not just as a matter of habit, but as a matter of principle, I often must put these misguided nit-wits on hold in order to laugh at them, punish them or simply to piss them off.
Here are some loose guidelines for how long you can expect to stay on hold when causing me misery via your inexorable stupidity:
  • "How do I get to the secret porno level in Marvelous Murray in Idiot World?"
    2 minute hold time before informing you that we are, in fact, an ISP and not a game call hotline.
  • "When I double-click on the big blue 'E' and type my e-mail address in the 'Address' white-thingy, it takes me to your homepage, is the internet down?"
    This deserves a nice 5 to 10 minute hold time (depending on how long it took them to stutter and puke out that little tid-bit of misinformation), followed by a brief conformation that the entire internet has in fact crashed followed by me screaming in despair and hanging up.
  • "I can't get my mail on AOL"
    I let them rot.
  • "Ok, I am a web design solutions provider, what is the ACHE-TEE-TEE-PEE so I can "publish" my clients E-commerce web site with FrontPage?"
    Depending on how long the screaming and pulling my hair out lasts, this can be a hold time of 10-15 minutes.
  • "Our mutual client, Mister--"
    CONSULTANT, I interrupt them right there and leave them on hold for 2 to 5 minutes and then keep putting them on hold sporadically. If they know what they are doing, I might be compliant, otherwise they'll get nothing from me! Claiming to be an internet consultant and then asking questions such as "Ok, what does FTP mean?" is a sure-fire way to get a nice 15 minute stint in the penalty box as I "go to look it up".
  • "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON DOWN THERE!?! I'VE TRIED TO DIAL IN TWICE NOW AND IT KEEPS TELLING ME SOME ERROR MESSAGE ABOUT MY MODEM OR THE PHONE LINE OR SOME SHIT. ARE YOU FUCKING BROKEN? I WANT MY E-MAIL!"
    Depending on how loud they are yelling and how obvious it is that the problem is on their end, this can mean total hold times of up to 30 minutes. I would and should just hang up, but that would deprive me of the chance to take them painstakingly, step by step through every unrelated setting imaginable on their computer spotted with frequent reboots and you guessed it, long duration's of listening to elevator music while I play Subspace or node.
  • "I am so fucking tired of your laggy service, I am a gamer!"
    Even if it is our fault, the attitude alone warrants cooling their heels for 10 while I sit and chew the fat with my co-workers. Eventually I will do the traceroute and find that one hop, on a different backbone completely, will have some astronomical ping time and then inform them that it isn't even close to our fault. If they persist that I fix it they get another 20.
  • "So, what's going on down there?"
    This is meant to intone that something is wrong on our end and the clients service, whatever that might be, isn't working; It always spoken with that snotty ass superiority I have come to know and love. The client, of course, doesn't give me anything useful to go on such as what service they have with us. My stock answer is usually "Not much", followed by silence. If they decide to remain in this state I turn them into a blinking light on my phone for at least 10 minutes.
I came up with so many of these that I had to erase a few just to make it of a suitable length. Needless to say, people say some fairly dumb things; so next time you get put on hold for no reason at all review the conversation, you may just be one of THEM!
I like it! 1 C!

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