“Thank you for your patience. All representatives are currently busy. Please continue to hold for the next available representative.”
It is a little known fact that HP support does not answer the phone on October 15th’s. They have a company picnic or dance party to the chime of the ringing phones. Uninvited and unknowing of this event, I was on hold for over two hours. Elevator music and the same message on an incessant repeat.
“Thank you for your patience. All representatives are currently busy. Please continue to hold for the next available representative.”
After about an hour and a half of this sinister pattern, I developed a Stockholm-syndrome-like attachment to my captor, the woman who voiced those nineteen words.
“Thank you for your patience. All representatives are currently busy. Please continue to hold for the next available representative.”
I became curious about her. Who was this woman with such an assuring, yet discomforting voice? Who was this woman who both made me feel at ease and wince at the sound of her first words? She’s most definitely a voice talent, but what led her to HP Support messages? Is she a failed voice actress, or are “on hold” messages exactly the best use of her talents? What other “on hold” messages has she voiced? Would I recognize her voice in any other places? I wondered if I had ever unknowingly heard her before. Does she have a small studio in her apartment, or does she go to her employers’ studios to record such messages? Is her apartment nice? Or maybe she lives in a house. I pictured an apartment – with an olive green accent wall and a white couch pressed up against it. A glass coffee table is surely positioned in front of the couch, its legs gold and its top decorated with books she’s never read. Maybe there’s a script and a half-drunk cup of coffee lying on the table as well. And maybe when her partner comes home, he or she – though I pictured a she – will pick up the script and read through it, tasting the cold coffee with disgust before getting up and washing it down the sink. They’ve probably been married a while, and the woman who voiced the support message looked beautiful on her wedding day – her brown hair cascading under her veil, tangled with perfect braids. When they said “I do,” they probably looked into each others’ eyes and laughed slightly, wincing at the sound of each others’ assured words. They’d always said they never wanted to get married. Maybe one of the books on their coffee table is a wedding photo album. And maybe when the woman who voiced the message comes home from work, she’ll sigh with exhaustion and look for her coffee. Her partner will feign oblivion before making a new cup.
“Thank you for your patience. All representatives are currently busy. Please continue to hold for the next available representative.”
Or maybe, I’m completely wrong.
“Thank you for your patience. All representatives are currently busy. Please continue to hold for the next available representative.”
I accidentally clicked the phone off after almost three hours. My printer’s still broken, and regardless, the answers to my questions, I’ll never know.