Potpourri101

The Wait: A Customer Service Hold-Time Horror Story

by L Parker Brown on January 21, 2018·General, Lifestyle and Culture, Opinion, Technology

The other day, I called the Social Security office to ask one simple question. When could I expect to receive my 1099 form? After several rings, my call was answered by an interactive voice response system (IVR), commonly referred to by us laypeople as a recorded message. As soon as I heard it, I knew that getting a simple answer to a simple question might take a little time. But I had no idea that I would become a casualty of phone system hell. This is my record of the call.

IVR: Your wait period is approximately 50 minutes.

Me: FIFTY MINUTES! I shouted in my mind. Are you kidding me? Thinking that perhaps I had misheard – surely the robot said 15 minutes, not 50 – I decided to wait. I looked at the clock. It was 8:55 a.m.

Holding the phone with my left hand, I leaned back in my chair, grabbed the TV remote with the free hand and began channel surfing.

After a few minutes, I started paying closer attention to the messages.

9:09 – IVR: Thank you for holding. We appreciate your patience. We are assisting other people and will help you as soon as we can.

When my clock displayed 9:10, I put the phone on speaker, set it on my desk, began filing my nails and reminiscing about the days when customer service meant person-to-person, not person-to-machine. Usually, after the second ring, the third at most, a real person would answer the phone, especially in government offices. You remember those days, don’t you?

It’s frustrating enough to be put on hold for an extended period, but when an IVR holds you hostage, you feel helpless. You don’t dare hang up and call back because you will just have to repeat the process.

It used to be that a caller could press zero to bypass the gibberish and be immediately connected to a live person. But businesses got wise to that and eliminated the feature, leaving callers no choice but to hold, and wait, and hold, and wait.

Some companies will place callers in a phone queue, sort of a virtual waiting room, offering them the option of remaining on the phone while they wait for an answer or receiving a callback. The Social Security system did not give me that option. And so I waited.

In the interim, I entertained myself by playing Words with Friends. I checked my Facebook page. I even perused my emails. Finally, I began recording the messages that rotated every 60 seconds.

9:15 – IVR: Thank you for holding. We appreciate your patience. We are assisting other people and will help you as soon as we possibly can.

ME: We’ll see. Holding the phone with one hand, I impatiently began tapping my fingers on the desk with the other.

9:16 – IVR: We apologize for this delay if you are calling for general information. If you are applying for retirement, disability or spousal benefits, you may want to visit us at www.social security.gov.

ME: Idiots! If you answer the phone, I would tell you that I cannot log on to the www.stupidsite. If I could do you think I’d be wasting my time calling you?

9:17 – IVR: We regret that you have waited so long.

ME: The hell you do.

IVR: We are doing our best to answer your call. Social Security provides benefits to more than 50 million. We are taking calls in the order in which they came.

ME: You said that already. Uh huh. Sure. I was determined to out-wait them.

9:18 – IVR: Thank you for holding.

ME: Oh, good. They’re finally going to answer.

IVR: We appreciate your patience.

ME: What!

IVR: We are assisting other people and will help you as soon as we possibly can.

ME: You’ve got to be kidding me.

9:19 – IVR: At the conclusion of your call we would like you to participate in a short survey and tell us about your experience.

ME: Oh, yes. Don’t I want to do that!

IVR: If you would like to participate in the survey, please stay on the line after the agent hangs up.

For the first time following the previous messages, I hear four fast beeps. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. That’s different, I think. Surely, a sign that someone is about to answer my call. I wait anxiously while watching the numbers on my digital clock flip over.

9:20 – IVR: Thank you for waiting. Someone will assist you shortly. Please have handy your Social Security number and any recent mail we have sent you. Having this information will help us to serve you better.

ME: Here we go. Finally!

9:21 – IVR: We apologize for this delay if you are calling for general information. If you are applying for retirement, disability or spousal benefits, you may want to visit us at www.socialsecurity.gov.

ME: Are you kidding me?

9:22 – IVR: We regret that you have waited so long. We are doing our best to answer your call. Social Security provides benefits to 50 million. We are taking calls in the order in which they came.

ME: Sitting in stunned silence and disbelief that I’ve been holding on the line for nearly 30 minutes. A first. And – a last.

9:23 – IVR: Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. (Then, there is a pause.)

ME: What’s with the beeps? No message following? I know someone is going to pick-up now. I’m preparing to stand up and do a happy dance. When I hear…

IVR: Thank you for holding. We appreciate your patience. We are assisting other people and will help you as soon as we can.

ME: Wearing a zombie-like expression.

9:24 – IVR: At the conclusion of your call we would like you to participate in a short survey and tell us about your experience. If you would like to participate in the survey, please stay on the line after the agent hangs up.

ME: Oooh, Buddy. You DO NOT want me to take the survey. Not now.

9:25 – IVR: Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Thank you for waiting. Someone will assist you shortly. Please have handy your Social Security number and any recent mail we may have sent you. Having this information will help us to serve you better.

ME: Now talking to the IVR. How many times are you all going to replay these */%# messages? As much as I hate on-hold music, I’ll opt for that now.

9:26 – IVR: Thank you for holding. We appreciate your patience. We are assisting other people and will help you as soon as we can.

Those same messages recycled repeatedly until at 9:55, just as I was about to hang up, a real live human came on the line.

Human: May I help you?

Me: I took a deep breath and did not fly off the handle because I knew he might be expecting that and I didn’t want him to hang up on me. So, I said calmly said through gritted teeth, “I’m calling to inquire about my 1099 form.”

I had barely finished the sentence before Human in a robotic tone said, “The 1099 forms are being mailed from headquarters throughout the month of January. You should receive your 1099 before the end of the month. Is there anything else I can help with?”

Thank you. No. Click!

Had I not recorded the times and IVR messages, I would not have believed that I had held the phone for an hour for a conversation that lasted about 45 seconds. My first and last time doing a phone marathon.

At least the SS IVR does not add insult to the injury of phone hang-over customers by including “Your call is important to us.”

And no, I did not take the survey.

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Contemplating Death and Dreams

by L Parker Brown on January 13, 2018·Family, General, Opinion

Some people consider dreams as just a random string of thoughts, which we may not even remember upon awakening. And then there are those who believe in psychic dreams, where future events are revealed to us while we sleep. My mother had such a dream before her death. I had forgotten about it until recently when I began rereading some of my journal entries.

Mother’s doctor had her hospitalized on the day that she and the rest of her family learned she was terminal. Within weeks, unrelenting, she told her doctor, the hospital staff, her visitors, and anyone else who would listen that she wanted out of that hospital. She wanted to go home.

After my dad died in August 2006, mother, always the independent-minded woman, had continued to live sufficiently on her own in the house they had bought decades ago. Now, literally on her deathbed, and as she imaged still in control of her life, she made up her mind that she would not die in the hospital.

Since she kept insisting on being released, her doctor suggested that we look into in-home hospice care.That sounded practical until I discovered that her insurance, Blue Cross, would not pay for in-home hospice, which I was told would cost around $500 per day. Infeasible! Since only God knew whether mother would live for days, weeks, or months, we had no choice but to adhere to mother’s demands and bring her home. My sister and I would take turns staying with her. We would prepare and bring her food, administer her medication and assist with her personal needs.

During that stressful period, my sister and I put our lives on hold and took turns, staying a week at a time, at mother’s house. Since she was tethered to a breathing machine, mother’s mobility was limited, but you wouldn’t know it if you heard us constantly insisting that she stop climbing out of the rented hospital bed. Mother has always been strong-willed, and she was determined to do for herself for as long as she could. On the occasions when my sister and I were there together, we would sometimes look at each other, and shake our head from side-to-side silently deploring mother’s stubbornness. I don’t know how my sister spent the days during her watch, but I utilized much of my time journalizing.

In a study by University of Texas psychologist and researcher James Pennebaker, he writes that writing about stressful events helps us release the intensity of our feelings and come to terms with them. How could anyone knowing that their mother is dying comes to term with that? What I knew then and have always known is that writing about my feelings, writing about nearly anything – depending on the situation – makes a difficult period easier and a pleasant experience more joyful.

Since I am in the process of writing a book about her, I’ve been rereading my journal entries recorded in the weeks preceding and immediately following mother’s death which occurred on June 18, 2014. Although I know I wrote it back then, it isn’t any easier reading it now. In fact, sometimes I become emotional and have to make a serious effort to calm myself before I continue. Painful emotions never go away; they just lie dormant until resurrected.

In one journal entry, six months before mother died, I describe a lucid dream that mother told me she had about my dad. Rereading it got me to wondering about dreams and death. This is what I wrote:

Sunday, January 12, 2014 – 8:36 PM

Mother told me that she dreamed about dad for a second time since he died. She said that in the last dream, three nights ago, dad was all dressed up in a suit. “He was looking nice, really sharp.” She said. As he was walking toward her, he stretched out his hand and said, “Come with me.” Mother said that although she knew she was asleep, she was consciously aware that dad was dead. And she also remembered that her mother used to tell her that if you dream of a dead person and the person tells you to come with them if you go, you too will die. Mother began backing away from dad until (in reality) she fell off of the bed and awoke on the floor.

“Did you hurt yourself?” I asked. “No,” she replied, “But I’m glad I woke up.”

My mother was always an intuitive person. Is it silly when I wonder if the breast cancer that had been in remission was rekindling during that dream? Was it a premonition or a coincidence that mother died six months after having that dream? I don’t believe in coincidences, but I will always wonder if mother was holding dad’s hand when she left us.

Life is filled with mysteries, some to never be solved. Dreams are one of those.

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Reminiscing Christmases Past

by L Parker Brown on December 23, 2017·Family, Holidays, Nostalgia

Merry Christmas! Feliz Navidad! Happy Kwanza! Joyeux Noël! Fröhliche Weihnachten! No matter how you say it, when it comes to Christmas time, celebrating the holidays is a long tradition.

Christians say that Jesus is the reason for the season. Skeptics merely see the holidays as an occasion for exchanging gifts. And some folks will tell you that they “don’t do Christmas” at all. Whether or not you celebrate Christmas and all things associated with it, including Santa Claus, that’s your prerogative. And since this is my soapbox, it’s also my prerogative to add that if you don’t celebrate Christmas there is no need for you to be a killjoy for those who do.

I miss Christmases back in the day when I was a child. And yes, my parents let my siblings, and I lend our imagination to the myth of Santa Claus, the tooth fairy and other fantasies that many of today’s contemporary parents consider taboo.

There was one Christmas season that occurred during my adulthood that brings up a sour memory. It was an unhappy experience, but all of my pleasant Christmases before and since then, make up for it.

As I am writing this, I am listening to Christmas music. Nothing takes me spiraling down memory lane to Christmases past faster than when I pull out my stack of Christmas CD’s, especially the oldies like The Ultimate R&B Christmas, Volumes 1 and 2 and The Temptations Give Love at Christmas. I’ve had those CD’s for more years than I can remember. Songs like Do You Hear What I Hear by Gladys Knight and The Pips and Donny Hathaway’s This Christmas. OMG! Those tunes envelop me in nostalgia and send me to Christmas heaven.

Let me share some of my childhood memories of Christmases past.

Days before the holiday, I’d sit near mother and watch her write lots of Christmas cards which she’d later send to relatives and friends. Sometimes she would complain about the cost of a first-class stamp, which until 1958 was 3 cents, but it didn’t stop her from sending cards.

Back then (before global warming) the Christmas season was usually cold, with temperatures averaging 34˚F. And some years we even got snow.

When dad and mom could scrape together enough money to buy a live tree, dad would take the 10-minute walk from our home in LeDroit Park to the Christmas tree stand in front of the Safeway on 1^st and Rhode Island Avenue and buy us the biggest Christmas tree that he could afford (which usually wasn’t very big because he couldn’t afford much). Years later, when we kids were older, my folks thought that artificial trees were the way to go. But, in the meantime …

My three siblings and I would delight in helping mom decorate the live tree. The first thing to go on would be colorful string lights with bulbs that screwed into sockets. The lights were wired in a series so that if one bulb was out, none of them would work. We had to plug the string into an electrical outlet and keep changing out bulbs in the strand with extras until we found the bad one. And then, whallah! The string would light up.

Fragile glass bulbs, red, blue, yellow and silver, went on the tree after the lights. Sometimes we’d accidentally drop a bulb on the hardwood floor, shattering it. Oops! After all the bulbs were placed, we’d toss thin strips of foil icicles onto the limbs, and our tree would glitter.

Mom frequently reminded us to keep water in the cup of the three-legged metal stand holding the tree so that the tree would not dry out because those old bulbs could get hot and set the tree on fire. For years, we had live trees. If I close my eyes now and concentrate, I can almost smell the fragrant pine that permeated throughout our living room. Aside from the pleasure of a live tree, as anyone who has had one knows, the downside to it is cleaning up all of the fallen pine needles.

After we decorated the tree, mother set a bowl of mixed fruit and nuts on the coffee table. A finishing touch.

Usually, Christmas dinner would be a fantastic meal like we didn’t normally have. Mother could burn! (Translation – mother was an excellent cook.) A turkey packed with homemade stuffing or a juicy ham topped with pineapple slices and red cherries was a luxury. The smell of cloves stuck in the ham mingled with the aroma of collard greens and ham hocks, corn on the cob or corn pudding, candied yams, and brown and serve rolls was so mouthwatering that even the kitchen walls seemed to salivate in anticipation of our family feast. Sometimes there would be a side dish of carrot salad with raisins, and usually some kind of pie for dessert. And our beverage back then – what else, but Kool-Aid. Mother’s Christmas feast was to die for.

After we all pigged-out, we kids would take a break from playing with our toys and we’d gather in the living room, around our only TV set, an old floor model, black and white RCA, and watch Christmas specials. Frosty the Snowman, Charlie Brown, and Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer were some of my favorites. And if memory serves me correctly, sometimes my other favorites, musicals like Peter Pan or The Wizard of Oz aired during the holiday season.

Some years, my folks would load us kids onto the DC Transit bus and take us downtown to see the animated Christmas displays in the windows of department stores like The Hecht Company and Woodward and Lothrop. Or if money weren’t too tight, we would take the train down south and spend Christmas visiting my grandparents and other relatives.

I remember one year, I might have been around 10-years-old, my Uncle Henry drove us to North Carolina and as we were coming back home, it was snowing heavily. Huge, thick, beautiful snowflakes like you would see in a Thomas Kinkade Christmas painting blanketed the landscape. As Uncle Henry’s old station wagon crawled along the unplowed highway, it seemed that every time we blinked, we would see another car stuck along the roadside. Sometimes one of us silly kids would say, “I hope we get stuck.” In our naivety, we simply saw an opportunity to play in the snow and delay the trip back home. Nevertheless, my mother’s prayers and Uncle Henry’s skillful driving brought us back home safely.

Till my dying day, I hope to maintain the many, wonderful Christmas memories from my childhood.

Unfortunately, when I look at today’s world when Christmastime is dimmed – like other times — by so much evildoing and horrific tragedies, I am reminded of a line I read recently in The Blaze Newsletter, “Such memories fill us with joys in a brutal world ever more joyless.”

Still, my Christmas wish for all the children of the world today is that they will compile beautiful memories of Christmastime.

And for all my blog readers, I wish you peace, joy, love, and a very Merry Christmas!

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Judging the Book: Two Tales

by L Parker Brown on December 17, 2017·Race Matters

Although numerous people aim to make Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream of a colorblind society a reality, antagonists ensure that the struggle for equality continues. And every day, accidental encounters between perfect strangers from different racial groups either leads them to ignore apprehension and prejudgments or it reinforces stereotypes.

Several weeks ago my son, a former Gulf War trooper, was seated at a table in a Panera Bread café. He was wearing his baseball style black cap with the words “Desert Storm Veteran” embroidered in gold, raised lettering on the front panel. Although his attention was focused on his laptop screen, he was mindful as he always is, of what was going on around him.

From the corner of his eye, he saw an elderly white couple strolling in his direction. The petite woman, dwarfed by her platinum colored beehive hairdo, was walking, hand-in-hand alongside a frail man. He was slightly taller than she and his shoulders were stooped by time. On his head, he wore a World War II Vet cap.

As soon as the strangers approached his table and stood by his side, my son immediately turned around to face them. Like most black people, he is well aware of the problematic political climate in this society, but he is not presumptuous. And beneath his outwardly calm demeanor, he sometimes entertains a wry sense of humor. I imagine that he was thinking, “What’s the problem now, sitting while black?”

When the two men made eye contact, the WWII soldier extended his open hand toward my son and said, “Thank you for your service.”

He had noticed my son’s cap and saw a comrade-in-arms. He told my son that he is 92 years old. My son is slightly more than half his age. The two vets clasped hands in a firm shake, and reciprocally, my son thanked the senior vet for his service.

While the two men enjoyed a brief but engaging conversation, the older man’s wife stood patiently by his side. The men chatted about their respective wars, how things have changed for veterans since the Second World War and even touched upon other service-related matters including benefits that are now available to eligible veterans that were non-existent when the WW II soldier was discharged. Although their conversation lasted only about 15 minutes, my son later told me that it was a strange, but pleasant encounter.

Overall, black people (particularly black men) have become so accustomed to being in the crosshairs of negativity until a positive experience sometimes catches them off guard. A white stranger approaching – God forbid it is a police officer – will cause some to brace for a verbal or physical attack. Like it or not, that’s just the way it is when you are black in America. And that’s why a pleasant occurrence like the one described above is worth sharing.

But then there is the other side of the story.

The dialog below was posted on Facebook allegedly by the black man who experienced it (not my son). Some of you may have seen it. It describes an incident that allegedly happened when a black man who was preparing to catch a flight stepped in the boarding line for first-class ticket holders. The white woman who came up behind him immediately assumed that the man was in the wrong line. Here is their exchange:

Her: Excuse me I believe you may be in the wrong place. You need to let us through. This line is for priority boarding

Him: Priority meaning first-class correct?

Her: Yes. Now excuse me. They will call y’all after we board.

Him: [Putting his first-class priority boarding pass in her face.] You can relax ma’am I’m in the right spot, been here longer, so you can board after me.

Her: [Still not letting it go and talking aloud to no one in particular.] He must be military or something, but we paid for our seats so he still should have to wait.

Him: Nope. Not military. I’m just a n***a with money.

Word is that some people waiting in line applauded him.

Of course, I wasn’t there, and I can’t vouch for the validity of this story, but I believe that it could have happened. You think not? Read the book.

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Signing the Christmas Cards When Unwedded

by L Parker Brown on November 27, 2017·Holidays, Lifestyle and Culture

Oh, come all ye saints and sinners – weigh-in on this. Since the 12 days of Christmas are a mere four weeks away, I’ll get straight to the point. I wrestled with this issue last year, and the year before that; in fact for the last 16 years. It’s time to put this baby to bed, and it isn’t a nativity scene.

The question is how to sign the Christmas cards when you are an unmarried couple.

If the friends and relatives to whom you send Christmas cards do not personally know your significant cohabitating other, should you include the SO’s name on the cards when you sign them, or just write your name and pretend that your boo doesn’t exist? Or do you write both names on all cards and let the recipients who don’t know him (or of him) ask themselves silly rhetorical questions like, “When did she remarry?” or “Did I miss something?” (Note – if sending a Christmas card to a former wanted-to-be boyfriend who won’t give up, include your SO’s name, for sure.)

In previous years, my practice has been as follows. If I am sending a card to someone who knows us both, then I will include both names on the card. But cards sent to people who only know me (for instance, former co-worker friends or acquaintances) will usually just have my signature. If I’m sending a card, for him, to one of his friends or relatives and they don’t know me, then his signature will be the only one on the card. Make sense?

I realize that the way an unmarried couple chooses to sign a card (for Christmas, birthdays, condolence, or any other occasion) is a personal decision, usually made by the person writing the cards. Still, I’ve been curious for a long time to know if there is a protocol on this matter. Miss Manners is there such a thing as card signature etiquette?

This year, before I begin sending Christmas cards, I decided to do some research. I discovered that through the decades, mainly since the sixties, other unmarried couples have also pondered the question of how should the name (or names) be signed beneath the message inside the card. There is also another issue. How should the envelope be addressed to a couple living out of wedlock?

Here is what I’ve learned:

The simple rule of thumb is to write the couple’s names alphabetically on separate lines and join their names with “and,” such as

Mr. Ahmal Jackson and
Ms. Shenika Jones
123 Shacking Up Lane
Sin City, Anyplace 00666

On the other hand, I would propose that the order of the names be determined by which person you know best. If you are a close friend or relative to Shenika, then you would address the envelope showing her name first and vice versa for Ahmal.

Ms. Shenika Jones and
Mr. Ahmal Jackson
123 Shacking Up Lane
Sin City, Anyplace 00666

If my mother were alive, I know how she would answer the question of how to sign the card. She’d say, “The couple should get married.”

Then, the couple would reply “Been there. Done that. Thank you, Ma’am.”

The query about how to sign the card is not a prompt for saints to offer a biblical lesson about living in sin; nor is it a signal for a Shakespearean rephrase about marriage: To do or not to do. That is not the question. The question is how to sign the darn card.

My research subsequently produced the answer to my question. And at the risk of sounding sacrilegious, I’ll say that it also brings to mind one of my favorite quotes, “I’d rather be known in life as an honest sinner than a lying hypocrite.”

Sleep baby.

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