On Hold

I'm on hold for the student services office. This is the most frustrating wait of my life. I learned last night about some big mess up with my tuition and now I supposedly owe 1,200 dollars for something someone, no MULTIPLE people said was covered a month and half ago. Now here I am today. I jumped out of bed, showered, ran to work, only to sit in my cubicle meekly, my ear resting the on the phone that's cradled between my head and shoulder. I've been on hold for somewhere near 10 minutes. 10 minutes. I've been to this office before. There's like 50 people in there. And three windows to help people. The rest of the people just sit around with phones. But not my phones. I called again after waiting 5 minutes. This time they said my wait time was 4:56 seconds. It's been 6:46. They just told me the expected wait time was 4:24. Somehow in this one place on campus, time has slowed down infinitely. The classical music interludes somehow have a calming effect on the laws of time and space. Maybe time smoked a J. Maybe it hotboxed it with all the telephone operators before it came into work. Maybe Brigham Young showed up too, and all the workers for FAFSA. They're all sitting around making out and talking about Heroes, laughing about the lights blinking on all the phones. They're- oh. Someone picked up. Pretty good job guys. It's only been 15 minutes of hold time. Exactly fifteen minutes.

...

Oh cool. Ok. Hold again. Nice. I'm loving this. I'm brushing up on my classical knowledge. I know all of these songs now. This is Tchaikovsky's 5th. This is Maller's 12th. Beautiful. Calming. It makes me ok with this super long wait. If they were playing Jimmy Eat World or Notorious B.I.G. I would be upset and angry because each song would clue me into just how long I've been waiting. But no, not with this music. Genius. I'm soothed. I'm calm.

Seriously, what the hell takes people THAT long to pick up a phone? I always like to imagine what they're doing. Playing paper wad basketball. Filing their nails, staring at the phone just muttering for it to stop ringing. Talking about who got married last night. Maybe no one is there. Maybe the girl picked up and said, "Can I put you on hold really quickly?" And I said, "Ok... sigh" and then she put the phone down next to a little speaker box playing classical music and stood up and walked outside, locking the door behind her. She walks across campus and she sits on the grass with a bunch of people with a frisbee and asks them if they want to play. They all get up-

She's back. Thank God.

...

She. Is it true? Really? She put me on hold again. She's calling someone else apparently. She said she's calling a processor. Here's what's really happening.
She says, "Let me call a processor. I'll put you on hold again."
Me, "...ok."
Linda (that's her name. I made it her name) puts down the phone gingerly. Her nails have just been did, so she doesn't want them to get scuffed. She's got a date on thursday; she's angry that it's on a thursday, but he's cute and funny and loves Brian Regan so it's ok. She's thinking of them getting married, has already looked up wedding dresses and places to take pictures. That's what she was doing for three hours, up until she got a call. She hoped it would go away, but nobody else picked it up, so she turned off her carrel light and crouched under her desk. The light wouldn't stop going off so eventually, after she briefly fell asleep, she stood up, stretched her back, and picked up the phone. She immediately knew she didn't know how to handle this so she put them on hold. She sat back in her chair, and stared at the cieling. All those little tiles have so many holes in them. They look like space in reverse, with little black spots. I wonder what they taste like. She picks the phone back up and says that she's been looking through the account, and now needs to call a processor to figure out what the hold up is. She puts the phone back on the cradle and gets up and walks to the water cooler. She takes a little cup and places it under the blue top spout. She eyes the red spout, wondering just how hot it is... it says caution hot... She switches the cup over to the red spout and lets the water fill up halfway. She then picks it up and looks through the thin waxy paper. She tips it onto her hand and drops the cup, wincing in pain. Yep, it's hot. She looks down at the water across the floor and the cup and her the blotch of red on the top of her hand. She turns around and walks back to her desk and picks up the phone.
Linda, "yeah, I called the processors and apparently they don't pick up for me. So, I'm going to try back later. I'm going to take your name and number and I'll call you back once I get in touch with them?"
Me, ".......... ok. I'll be in class later, so make sure you leave a message please."
Linda, "Ok, thank you have a great day!"
She hangs up the phone and sits down in her chair again. She looks around the bustling office, at all these people with papers and phones and people to talk to and thinks to herself, "I belong here."


I'll never go to college again.