Call Centre Blues

Waiting
for the call centre
to pick up the phone,
I navigate an endless, multi-layered maze
of buttons to be pressed,
some hard, some soft,
some once, some not at all,
some again and again 
until finally,
a recorded message says
someone will be with me
in 30  
in 20
in 10,
or as soon as
a representative is available. 
Music plays happily in the background
until a real person,
smiling from a continent away says,
I can’t help you, 
until you answer six questions
and have the documentation
in your hand.

So I say,
Hang on a minute
or 10
or 20
or 30, 
until I pad down the hall   
around the corner
and reach up
to the second shelf,
where I keep
my large stack of bills
and thank G-d,
or E,
or me,
the one I want
is on the top.
So I trod back
around the corner
down the hall  
and into the room
where I answer
the six questions,
including the amount I paid
on my last bill
until he says,
smiling from a continent away,
I can’t help you,
until you first return
the whatchamacallit,
and after you’ve done that, 
call back,  
maybe in 30
or 20
or 10
as music
plays happily in the background.

Three, or four, or five days later
I navigate
the same maze of buttons,
listen to the same recorded message,
as the same music
plays happily in the background,
and after 30
or 20
or 10,
I tell the guy  
that I returned the whatchamacallit
and he says,
I can now close your account,     
and, smiling from a continent away asks,
Do you want to fill out
a customer satisfaction survey?
Smiling
from right here in my room  
I say, No thanks.
Click.

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