  I am sitting on hold with a credit card company. The first hold was 13 minutes and they disconnected me. This one is now (pauses to check) 8:53. I have a habit of verbally skewering customer service representatives when provoked unduly. This hold music is panflutes and some very serious world music drumming and it is calming me somewhat. Apologies to anyone who is a customer service representative who might be reading this; I am really quite nice until you tell me whatever I am calling to discuss with you is not your fault.
If you work for the company, then, no, I am not saying it is personally your fault; and I will gladly make that distinction and bid you peace. I know you are a person with mouths to feed and bills to pay, just like me. However, in your professional capacity, you are a representative of whatever grand conglomerate whose fault it is, and I have to complain to someone. So I select you. In this case . .
. it's not their fault that they put the wrong damn name on my card, is it? OMG! They just disconnected me again. At my old company, a human always answered the phone. We might put you on hold and come back after a minute or two, but we answered it.
For two summers and whenever they needed someone to pinch hit, even at the end of my decade-long tenure there, I answered that phone and fielded all of that ire, confundity and bliss. Sometimes ten lines were going at once. So I know of what I speak. And I did it as compassionately as I could. I was not a cog. I would get off my ass and personally handle things for people.
And they were dead grateful. Unlike some whom you encounter. I know they are limited sometimes in what they can do -- the nadir of my professional life was a temp job where I generated foreclosure notices all day long for a mortgage company. I had to write down when I went to the bathroom and when I got back. So I know what it's like to be under the corporate jackboot, too. But they can manage to connect a call without losing it .
. . can't they? I ask so little. I think I need to use behavior modification techniques at this moment and permit S to handle this. The vein in my forehead is starting to throb alarmingly.
Deep, cleansing breath. This does not matter right now. Ah . . . serenity now.
Update: I can never leave well enough alone, so I started doing some updates on the cat shelter and just called and waited again. I got a lovely man with a rumbly, mesmerizing voice who handled everything and made the world right again. I moaned on about the inconvenience in a distressed damsel sort of way and he made all the appropriate condolences. I was half in love with him by the time I hung up. Problem solved. New card en route. 
