I sometimes have this Kafka-esque dream in which I'm a child frantically trying to place a phone call. There's always some terrible emergency playing itself out around me—like, the house is on fire, the dog has swallowed poison or my baby sister has pushed a fishhook up her nose.

In this dream everything conspires to keep me from making the call. I usually find myself out on the street desperately looking for a payphone. There's not one to be found anywhere. When one finally and miraculously appears, I don't have a quarter. Then when someone gives me a quarter I can't remember the phone number, which has a hundred digits. I try Directory Assistance. They have the number but now I don't have anything on which to write it. I find some paper and a pencil. I get the number. Now I need another quarter. Got it. Hurry, dial the number. Dammit, I can't see the buttons! Then, half way through the agonizingly slow process of dialing the number I realize I made a mistake. I start all over again. More quarters. More groping for the buttons in the dark. Finally, I'm connected. It's ringing. Please, can someone help us?

Sorry kid, wrong number.

A psychiatrist would no doubt have a lot of fun analyzing the source of my nocturnal neurosis. But I can save her the time, and me the money. Surely it's stress-related, and in times of stress I often revert back to memories of my childhood.

One of those memories is of my family's first telephone. It was one of those heavy black instruments with a rotary dial that you see in movies like Rear Window. We had a party line, which means that our connection was shared with a couple of other neighbors. Each household had its own unique ring--one long, two shorts, a long and a short. That's how you knew if you should answer the phone or to just let it ring because someone was calling the Schaffers next door.

Our telephone was not something to be taken lightly. I think it was revered second only to the family bible and it had its own special place on a little table in the hallway between the living room and the kitchen. You had to have a darn good reason for using it. "Well, dear, we haven't invited the Grays over for quite awhile now. Should we ask them over next time we run into them, or should I use the telephone?"

Our family's "reverence" toward our telephone continued even into my teenage years and was often a source of embarrassment. You sure as hell thought twice before phoning for a date. Because of where the phone was located, the whole damn family got to hear every word of your stuttering proposal.

Yet however misplaced our respect for the telephone may have been in those days, I wish there was more of it today. The proliferation of public cell phone abuse and irritating telemarketers are just two examples of how the poor telephone gets no respect anymore. Speaker phones are another. And let's not forget conference calls. When's the last time you got off one of those and thought, Wow, what a great conference call—I wish it could have lasted another hour?

But the mother of all telephone disrespect is the corporate automated answering system—the menu selection game. "To speak to a representative please press '9'." Yeah, sure. And just when is it that this so-called representative is going to speak with me? Anytime today, perhaps?

The automated answering system is insulting enough. But the insult becomes even more flagrant when every five minutes you're told your call is important. Bullshit. A call is not important if it is not answered—period. The action speaks louder than the words. Let's get one thing cleared up right now. Your call is not important to anyone except you. It's not important to the company, it's not important to the person you eventually speak with and it certainly is not important to the actor who made that stupid recording. I mean, do you really think the Moviephone man gives a shit whether or not you go see the latest Julia Roberts film? Come on.

Having gotten that off my chest, why SHOULD your call be important, you silly consumer? I mean let's face it, taking phone calls from customers is not exactly the stuff high-flying careers are made of. The CEO doesn't go home to his wife at the end of the day and say, Wow, dear, you should have heard some of the interesting calls our people received today. And he certainly didn't get to where he is by listening to your piddly little problems. Nor is the technical support guy thinking he's going to get a promotion because he handled your call so lovingly. No, no one cares about your call. Get over it. "Your call is important to us" has joined the ranks of the world's greatest lies—right up there with, "Your check is in the mail," and, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you."

Still, businesses persist in their efforts to create this mythological Emerald City persona of a company in which all its Munchkins are running around making the customer feel important. "We appreciate your business. . . Thank you for your patience. . . In order to serve you better. . . All of our representatives are busy helping other customers." Yeah, yeah, follow the yellow brick road. Don't they realize that all of that appreciating, serving and helping makes everyone suspicious right from the get-go?

The nightmare begins with something like, "For quality and training purposes this call may be recorded." Come on folks, who do you think you're kidding? The only reason you are recording the call is to cover your ass in case I decide to sue you later.

In between the proclamations of how important your call is you are also given subtle hints as to just what a bother you really are. For example, a favorite tactic is to try to divert you to the company's website where for sure your stupid question has already been answered for hundreds of other obtuse people just like yourself. Little do they realize, of course, that that's why you're calling in the first place. Just where the hell on your website IS that little bit of information I need to solve my problem? If I had an hour to spend drilling through your slow, disorganized, and anemic website I wouldn't be calling you in the first place.

And while I'm at it, have you ever tried to find a company's address on its website? Good luck. If it's listed at all it is usually buried ten layers deep under the "Contact Us" link. And "Contact Us" mostly means send us an e-mail so we can take our old sweet time about getting back to you. What's that? You actually want to call our headquarters? Fuggedaboudit!

Or how about this one? Clearly, dear customer, you're just not up to speed on the nuances of our business. You haven't done your homework and you need to learn the terms of our industry before we can even begin to speak with you. Recently, not being able to find the information on a website—while I was on hold—a pre-recorded message suggested that I might want to try the company's fax service. So I pressed that option and punched in my fax number. Sure enough, a few seconds later my fax machine sputtered out four pages of technical gobbledygook.

Why is it that companies can't get it through their collective thick skulls that I don't want to master their business? If I own a car (which I don't) I just want to know how to start the engine and where to put the gas. I don't need to know how the transmission is connected to the drive shaft. If I have a problem with my transmission I'll take it to a mechanic. Computer and internet-related businesses are the worst at this. They just haven't gotten the word yet.

Another one of my favorites is the now familiar, "In order to serve you better . . " routine. In order to serve you better you'd "better" have all of your ducks in a row BEFORE you place that call, buddy. That means, have your credit card ready, your social security number, your computer's serial number (can you even find it?)—and my all-time favorite—the tracking number from the LAST time you called and we gave you that wrong information.

But wait! I'm being connected! I'm no longer on hold. Maybe my call really is important to them. Maybe they really were helping other customers. Maybe they really do appreciate my patience. Maybe this really isn't a dream I'm having.

Enght—buzz! Thank you for playing, sucker. You think you're so smart because you got through to us? Well, the stakes have now been raised. Now we're going to smother you with kindness

And this is where they get you. "Hello, my name is John and how can I be of service to you today?" Did I make a mistake? Have I been on hold all this time with The Olive Garden instead of Microsoft?

And the truth is, most of the customer support people that I've dealt with really are very pleasant—and for the most part quite knowledgeable. The techies and the customer service staff are not the problem. As I've always said, the fish rots from the head. My call may not be important to John, but at least he is nice about it. The problem is, my call is not important to John's boss—or his boss' boss.

Today it's no longer enough to just be put on hold and told your call is important. Smart businesses realize that customers have grown thick skins from their put-on-hold abuse. With speaker phones, call holding and multiple phone lines, some of us can stay on hold for days and still continue to go about our work. So the new approach, in case you haven't noticed yet, is to tell the customer that the company is just too busy to take her call. Period. Call back later. You gotta give them credit for chutzpah.

So what's the problem? If we know that our business is not really important why can't we just accept it as a bald-faced lie? After all, we don't get upset at TV commercials that promise the impossible. Most folks pretty much accept the 30-second spot for what it is—just another lie. Like "military intelligence", "truth in advertising" is an oxymoron. We seldom harbor high expectations for the product being hawked—even if the product is a phone service.

But the telephone is more than a "product." It is more than a mere instrument of communication. Like the horse—and later the automobile—the telephone is an assurance of one's independence and freedom. It is essential to survival. Hell, it used to be that if you stole someone's horse you got hung. Businesses that put you on hold while telling you your call is important to them are the moral equivalent of horse thieves. They're grand theft auto. They are messing with your basic stuff. And that's why it bothers us so much.

"If you know your party's extension, please press 1. If not, enter the first four letters of your party's last name."

Hell no I don't know my party's extension. And by the way, just where is that party?

Did you ever try to punch in those first four letters of your "party's" last name? Take "Bradley," for example. That shouldn't be too hard, right? B.R.A.D. Let's see.

Ok, "B" is # 2. Got it. Next is "R." Where the hell is R? R! R! Where ARE you, R? There it is— # 7. Got it! Now on to the "A." That should be easy. A is the first letter of the alphabet. So to make up for the time you lost finding R, you quickly press # 1. Enght! Thanks again for playing. "A" may the first letter of the alphabet, but it's the SECOND number on the phone! Now you've really done it. Now you've screwed up bigtime. Now you get to start all over again.

The good news is, I'm having fewer of those nightmares about using the telephone. They're being replaced by waking reality. 

© Copyright 2001, Richard Bradley. All rights reserved.