I was on hold the other day whilst connected through to some call centre, presumably somewhere on the other side of the planet.I was listening to one of those irritating electronic voices- "there are 6 people in front of you, we will attend to your call as soon as possible" blah, blah, blah.
I was holding for over 15 minutes until I reached the operator!
Shall we play a game here?
By pressing the keypad # sign on the telephone you will be entered into a - all topic telephone brain teasing queue jumping game.
A electronic Anne Robinson or some other quizzer bot will explain that each time a question is asked, you are given 3 various options to answer the question at hand, and you must quickly select the correct one."Is the correct answer keypad button 1, button 2 or button 3 on the phone?"
Eg:"What is the halfbakery?"
1) a fishnet?
2) a hairnet?
3) a communal site, chock full of half-baked ideas?
Quickly press the numbered button which you feel to be the correct answer.
If you have selected the correct answer fast enough, you will immediately jump ahead of the person waiting in the queue in front of you and carry onto the next question.Get it wrong and you either stay where you are, (if at the end of the telephone queue) or fall back behind the caller behind you, or you'll probably end up smashing the handset on your desk screaming blue f%*$*%g murder! and reaching for the roughed up encyclopaedia, whilst all other callers are battling it out for telephone call waiting supremacy.-- skinflaps, Mar 22 2005 You might have the problem of getting people off the service, you know 'hey! I was about to get that answer!'-- froglet, Mar 22 2005 Sort of a telephonic survival-of-the-wittest, eh? Cheerio! [+]-- Soterios, Mar 22 2005 I was about to set a record. Could you put me back on hold?-- Mr Burns, Mar 22 2005 <presses 3 and hangs up>-- k_sra, Mar 22 2005 <presses 2 and adjusts telephone manner>-- skinflaps, Mar 22 2005 Sir, I've been on hold for more than 24 hours. The coffee holder in my computer has stopped working.-- theircompetitor, Mar 22 2005 [+] I've seen the previous "fun things on hold", but this competitive element is a nice welcome addition. It's a zero-sum game, though. Your win is someone else's loss, so the losers will get really mad. Maybe make the start of the menu be "If you'd like to enter the "competetitive quiz queue", press 1"-- sophocles, Mar 22 2005 "If you'd like to enter the "competetitive quiz queue", press 1, 2 and 3"-- skinflaps, Mar 23 2005 How did that game "Simon" work? I have a vague memory of it which suggests that it should be possible to play it with a tone keypad while waiting on a telephone queue...-- hippo, Mar 23 2005 4 colored button/pad areas of the unit lit (each with their own associated tone) in an ever-lengthening sequence and you were to repeat the sequence. Some levels of difficulty would also run the sequence progressively faster, as I recall. Without the visual cues, telephone Simon would likely be more challenging than the original.-- half, Mar 23 2005 Right - I remember now. A purely tone-based game might teach callers perfect pitch.-- hippo, Mar 23 2005 [Ian] My thoughts, exactly. After years as a call center supervisor for a wireless company, I always thought that intelligence tests should be given to people wanting to purchase a cell phone & plan.
[+]-- Klaatu, Mar 23 2005 Brilliant. This would be yet another vehicle for thinning the herd, so of course it gets my bun.-- MikeD, Feb 22 2010 Not to be a Boring Voice of Reality—but as a business owner, I'd worry that our clients would enjoy the game so much, they'd (a.) moan and groan when the agent came on, who wouldn't be nearly as fun; and/or (b.) they'd call back just to play the game, tying up our phone lines. Just saying [shrug].-- Ander, Nov 28 2021 random, halfbakery