So I’m still on the phone.
If you don’t recall from last week’s article, or have blocked it out, I’m currently trying to transfer phone service from an old flip phone to a new flip pone, and also transfer my number so the five people who have it will be able to contact me.
And you’d think that every phone call to the phone company would go smoothly, since that’s what they do for a living. But it does not. Every time I entered my number, the phone system told me to call back in five minutes because of some transaction I didn’t know anything about. All I knew was that I’d gotten texts about it every single night for two years that instructed me to call an 800 number, and when I did, they told me I didn’t have to worry about it any longer, and then they proceeded to keep sending me texts. But other than that, it didn’t affect my life at all until I realized they would never let me through the phone system to speak to an operator so I can get out of this phone plan.
Ultimately, I elbowed by way through the system, using the “Just Keep Pushing 0” method. And that worked, in that I got an operator who had no idea what to do either. So he puts me on hold, and a voice comes on and says, “We have a new feature now that calls you back, so you don’t have to sit on hold! Press 1 for us to call you back. Press 3 to keep holding. Your wait time is 1 minute.”
I pressed 3. And the system said, “Okay, your—” and hung up on me.
Great. There’s no way they’re gonna call me back now.
So anyway, I called back. And this woman picked up, and I thought, “I can explain the whole situation to her, which now has 4 parts instead of 3, or I can simplify it:
“I’ve been trying to transfer my phone number, but I got cut off.”
And she said something along the lines of, “I can do your thing!”
And then she gets back on and says, “I can’t do your thing.”
And I’m like, “I know.” So far, it’s the same as the previous rep.
And she says, “But if you call back in five minutes…”
“No!”
“Why not?”
“Because I called days ago and was told ‘five minutes.’ These are the five minutes that are going to do it?”
I’m not giving it five minutes. It took me way longer than that to get here, and the last thing I want to do is start over with someone new. No operator is going to continue the conversation.
So I’m going to call back and enter the number I’m calling about, and then get on with an operator who’s going to ask me for the number I’m calling about. And then they say, “Can you tell me your name?” And I do. And they ask, “Can you tell me how to spell it?” And I say, “Okay. M as in Michael, O as in orange, R as in rabbit…” and they say, “Slow down.” And I’m thinking, “You don’t have to type everything I’m saying. Just the letters.” She’s there typing, “R as in… How do you spell rabbit?” So there’s no such thing as calling back in five minutes.
And yes, ideally, when I call back, I should be able to ask for the same person, right? But the first guy didn’t help me; he handed me off. So I should ask for the guy who might remember that he couldn’t help me? Not that I’m convinced that the other people in the call center even know each other by their fake names anyway. Imagine you called back a Chassidishe call center and asked for “Bill.” You’d hear in the background, “Hey, Yoily, are you Bill?” “No.” “Shmiel, are you Bill? Raizy, are you Bill?”
So I say, “Okay, I might as well ask: What is this transaction? What’s it doing?”
And she says, “This is for the benefits!”
And I ask, “What benefits?”
And she says, “The benefits!” Like she was hoping I knew.
“All right. Thank you. But can’t you just finish the transaction process? Or cancel it? I don’t care.”
“There’s nothing we can do at our end,” she says. We, collectively, as a company. A phone company. None of us. It’s min hashamayim from this point.
And then she continues again: “Anyway, if we get off the phone now and you call back in five minutes…”
So I say, “We’ve been on the phone for more than five minutes since you told me “five minutes”. Has my status changed?”
And she says, “No. But if you wait another five minutes…”
So she puts me on hold. And a voice comes on and says, “We have a new feature! Press 1 for us to call you back, or 3 to stay on the line. The wait time is one minute.”
And I say, “I did not go through all this to have to call back anyway.” So I take the gamble, and I don’t get disconnected.
The next operator picks up, and I say, “This previous operator was trying to transfer my number, but something was blocked.” And he says, “I can take care of that for you!”
So he’s trying a bunch of stuff, and there are whole chunks of time when nothing is happening. But he does get back on the line every 30 seconds to ask me, “Are you still there?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, I’m still working on it, but it’s taking some time.”
“I understand. This is what you told me 30 seconds ago.”
“Hello, are you still there?”
“Yes.”
“I’m still working on it, but it’s taking some time.”
“I got it. It’s like I was in middle of telling you—”
“Hello, are you still there?”
“Always assume I’m still here. I have no motivation to hang up! Why am I the flight risk here?”
And I know it’s not a machine, because every time he gets on, he mispronounces my name differently.
“Hello, Mordell, are you still on the line?”
“Hello, Morkedd?”
And I never once correct him. Yet every single time, he tries a new variation.
Anyway, after a half hour of this, he says, “Okay, I cancelled the transaction and got your number switched over.”
This is despite the other operator insisting that it absolutely could not be done. This must be the head of the company.
“Now all I have to do is transfer your service.”
And then there’s some more silence punctuated by interruptions, and finally he gets on and says, “Hello, Medical?”
“Yes?”
“Let’s test it out. Is your phone turned on?”
“Yeah!”
So he says, “Try to make a call with it.” And it turns out I have no idea who to call.
So I try my wife, and I get a busy signal. And I think, “Okay, I don’t know if that’s actually a busy signal or my phone’s not working.”
So the guy says, “Try calling someone else.” So I try calling her work number. She can’t be on both phones, right? But I get a busy signal.
Then I realize that the second number didn’t even dial. I still have a busy signal from the first call. Or is it from before that? The operator doesn’t know either. And nothing I press stops it.
So the rep says, “Well, I definitely did it. You know what? Try calling someone in a half hour, and if it doesn’t work, call us back.”
The only reason I let him off the phone at that point is that he’d done so much and he had a whole company to run.
Anyway, I wait a half hour, and sure enough, it doesn’t work. And now it’s getting late, and I have to get to school soon so I could talk to a wall over there.
So I call the number again, and I press 00000, and some random operator picks up, and she says, “Can you give me your first name?” and I do, and she says, “Oh. Can you spell it?” And I don’t ask for the guy I’d spoken to before because I don’t have his name and there was no non-awkward time to ask, and if he wasn’t out of ideas, he would have given me his name.
Anyway, at this point, I’m in way too deep to simplify the problem in one sentence. So I say, “We were trying to switch phone service, and we were able to switch the phone number, and he said he cancelled that transaction, and supposedly he transferred the service too, but now we can’t get the phone to work, and the guy said I should call back.”
And then I hear silence.
I hate that silence. You hear loud typing in the background, and you hope they’re reading your notes, but if that’s what they’re doing, what’s with all the typing? Are they having an emergency texting conversation with the previous guy?
(“You get on.” “No, you get on. I can’t even pronounce his name.”)
Finally, she gets on and says, “Hello, Marcal?”
“Yes?”
“I’m not trained for this issue.”
So she puts me on hold. And the voice comes on and says, “We have a new feature! Press 1 to have us call you back, or press 3 to stay on the line.” So I press 3, and I get cut off.
And then I look at my watch and realize I have to leave, so that’s it. And now I have neither phone. So if you’re one of those people who accidentally has my cell phone number, don’t call it for at least the next half hour.
The good news is that in the interim, they have nowhere to send the nightly texts they’re still going to keep sending me.
Mordechai Schmutter is a weekly humor columnist for Hamodia, a monthly humor columnist, and has written six books, all published by Israel Book Shop. He also does freelance writing for hire. You can send any questions, comments, or ideas to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
