{"id":18561,"date":"2025-04-18T16:38:23","date_gmt":"2025-04-18T14:38:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/18\/when-were-left-hanging-on-the-telephone-brief-letters\/"},"modified":"2025-04-18T16:38:23","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T14:38:23","slug":"when-were-left-hanging-on-the-telephone-brief-letters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/18\/when-were-left-hanging-on-the-telephone-brief-letters\/","title":{"rendered":"When we\u2019re left hanging on the telephone | Brief letters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Bad customer service | Binary answer to the ultimate question | MPs\u2019 mobiles | Crossword gold<\/p>\n<p>Anna Tims\u2019 feature on appalling customer service (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/money\/2025\/apr\/17\/the-death-of-customer-service-why-has-it-become-so-so-bad\">17 April<\/a>) omits to mention two of the most common, disingenuous and irritating recorded responses to telephone inquiries, which are \u201cPlease hold, your call is very important to us\u201d (it clearly isn\u2019t) and \u201cYour call will be answered shortly\u201d (invariably it won\u2019t be). As for the on-hold music, some honesty could be introduced by playing Blondie\u2019s Hanging on the Telephone.<br \/><strong>Adrian Brodkin<\/strong><br \/><em>London<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Your Easter editorial (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2025\/apr\/17\/the-guardian-view-on-the-meaning-of-life-easter-and-the-ultimate-question\">17 April<\/a>) mentioned Douglas Adams\u2019 42 as the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. In a way it is, because expressed in binary notation 42 is 101010, an index of a repeating \u201cyes-no\u201d fluctuation surely at the root of much cosmology and fundamental\u00a0physics.<br \/><strong>Brian Smith<\/strong><br \/><em>Berlin, Germany<\/em><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/money\/2025\/apr\/18\/when-were-left-hanging-on-the-telephone\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><br \/>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/17f7baf71ef2a4527ec60396b7b7433d71009941\/0_573_1877_1126\/master\/1877.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=413b96f38862c6e06f7b487a61137a0e\" title=\"When we\u2019re left hanging on the telephone | Brief letters\" \/>Bad customer service | Binary answer to the ultimate question | MPs\u2019 mobiles | Crossword gold<br \/>\nAnna Tims\u2019 feature on appalling customer service (17 April) omits to mention two of the most common, disingenuous and irritating recorded responses to telephone inquiries, which are \u201cPlease hold, your call is very important to us\u201d (it clearly isn\u2019t) and \u201cYour call will be answered shortly\u201d (invariably it won\u2019t be). As for the on-hold music, some honesty could be introduced by playing Blondie\u2019s Hanging on the Telephone.Adrian BrodkinLondon<br \/>\n\u2022 Your Easter editorial (17 April) mentioned Douglas Adams\u2019 42 as the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. In a way it is, because expressed in binary notation 42 is 101010, an index of a repeating \u201cyes-no\u201d fluctuation surely at the root of much cosmology and fundamental\u00a0physics.Brian SmithBerlin, Germany Continue reading&#8230;Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bad customer service | Binary answer to the ultimate question | MPs\u2019 mobiles | Crossword gold Anna Tims\u2019 feature on appalling customer service (17 April) omits to mention two of the most common, disingenuous and irritating recorded responses to telephone inquiries, which are \u201cPlease hold, your call is very important to us\u201d (it clearly isn\u2019t) &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/18\/when-were-left-hanging-on-the-telephone-brief-letters\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">When we\u2019re left hanging on the telephone | Brief letters<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":18562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18561"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}