FIN — 2011

MAIN STREET

NAT BAILEY — CIRCA 2000
(please click to enlarge)

HURRY UP AND WAIT
For two days I tried to connect with Shaw to get a new password or some entry into a magical realm governed by the resident spirits of outsourcing hell. Estimated time waits were laughably approximate, "Two hours" routinely becoming four hours, and even that being no guarantee. It might be time for Shaw to consider hiring, and perhaps hiring people who speak English, since it seems that expecting people to keep on top of technology is already tough enough.
On my last fruitless attempt, I endured an hour or so of very bad music, on a loop, interrupted only by Shaw's advertisements for itself, and news that my call was important to Shaw, but the reading was, "Your call is of supreme unimportance to us because we happen to rule. Please continue to hold for the next available customer service representative, or for Godot, since an appearance by the latter is highly more likely in the grand scheme of things."
I listened until my ears bled. Swinging Shepherd Blues … I Could Have Danced All Night … Here Comes the Sun … Lara's Theme from Doctor Bloody Zhivago … The semiotics were that there was good news here, if only one just looked hard enough to find it. The good news was that these clips of very bad music in very bad arrangements were very short. The bad news was that because of their brevity, you'd be hearing them come around again all that much sooner.
Eventually, the phone rang. The accent was as unplaceable as it was indecipherable. The brief exchange led to nowhere, though the man on the other end was very pleasant as he asked me if there might be anyone else in the house who knew a little more about computers.
In turn I like to think I was quite pleasant when I asked if there might be someone in his house who had a perhaps firmer grasp on the rudiments of English, and if so to please put him on since I would love to talk to him.
— Lloyd Dykk