[ Wednesday, March 07, 2007 ]

Living on hold

I don’t know if I’ve ever shared this bit of personal history or not, but despite recent cell phone fun, I hate using the telephone.  I don’t like answering it.  I don’t like making calls.  But above all, I hate being on hold and the forced captivity that almost always includes some horrid musical selection.

Yesterday I started the process of booking the airline for the big trip to Portugal.  As I am wont to do .... tiny aside here...isn’t it a strange word - that “wont”...I mean with the tiny addition of an apostrophe, you hit its exact opposite .... aside over. 

Anyway, as I am wont to do, I began by researching the various online registration options and found, much to my extreme delight, that if I book directly through US Airways, I can save almost exactly half of the comparable fare everywhere else.  So, I beat URL feet to US Airways and started to reserve two seats.  I spent five hours trying to book those seats and at the end of the day, I stopped trying.  I tried and tried and tried and then called the offered 800 internet assistance line.  I made some changes to my browser setup and then tried and tried and tried again.

I was filled with deliberate care and I filled in those little field boxes, making sure that I was exact and purposeful and that I followed the directions exactly as given.  This might be a good time to remind you that I am no Internet rube.  I have developed the very sort of page that was currently causing me so much extended grief.  What I found particularly challenging was that even given the consistency of my information input, I was getting three different error messages...not at the same time mind you, but in a rather random output each following my click to submit and each following about 90 seconds of watching a little airplane icon jet its way toward a promise of completion.

Sometimes the error message reprimanded me that I was timed-out.  Sometimes, my credit card was rejected.  Sometimes the site was too busy.  I repeated my responses exactly each time and each time I had the same result, consistent only in its rejection.

Yes...I know that this is the very definition of insanity...but a different outcome was expected each time I tried...I really expected to find success. 

I also sort of hoped I’d win the big MegaMillions lottery too, but that didn’t pan out either.

Anyway, I went to bed unticketed and spent.  This morning I was way busy with real life, so I couldn’t renew my quest until late this afternoon.  Again, I repeated the process over and over and finally clicked to the website chatmaster and tried to seek resolution that way.

It is now 3 hours later and my husband and father-in-law remain unticketed.  The difference now is that I am on hold with US Airways, have been for the last 76 minutes.  The first 15 minutes were on hold with the technical support line who gave up and transferred me to international reservations.  That entire staff are either enjoying a dinner staff meeting, playing seven card stud or jetting their way to Athens.  One thing they aren’t doing is answering my call.

In the meantime, I wait because I am trapped by the first priority given me by the technical support call I made when I started this leg of my journey.  I am trapped and numbed by the idiotic sales pitch that fills the quiet my on-hold status would normally bring me - the only benefit it brings is the assurance that I am not hung-up upon. 

Wait...right there I was treated to the same up swell of cheesy inspired music that has thrilled me for almost an hour and a half.  I sit here wondering why don’t I have a relative or friend who can just do this as part of their job for me?  Why oh why oh why?

I now hate US Airways.  I hope they don’t manage their luggage with the same efficiency.

Wish me luck.