On Hold

In my lifetime I have waited "on hold", on average, at least twice a week, every week, for a length of 5 minutes or longer.  That's actually a conservative estimate because I have been on hold longer than that many times and in the past 17 years, in the field of work I'm in, I've been on hold many times in a single day if I'm ordering parts or waiting on technical support.  (One of a technician's most valuable tools can be the phone and consulting with those who know more than they do.)  So, twice a week, at five minutes a shot, is very conservative.  If we go back 25 years, twice a week, at five minutes per episode, the math looks like this:  25 x 52 x 2 x 5 gives us a total of 13,000 minutes. Now, to get an idea of how many hours we simply do this:  13,000/60 = 216.6 hours.  Now, to see how many days I've actually waited on hold we simply take 216.6/24 = 9.025 DAYS!  A little over nine days.  Of waiting.  With a phone to my ear.  Over a lifetime that's not too bad I guess.  But I do always seem to be waiting for something or someone.  As is the case with so many other people.  Like you.  How many times have you been on hold?  Or just waited for a phone call?  Or how many times have you been told a service representative/installer would be at your house between the hours of blah, blah, on a certain date?  We wait.  In fact, if we were really honest with ourselves we actually wait most of our lives for our death.  We watch the clock tick away and by the end of the day we subconsciously think, "well, that's one more day I can cross off on my limited amount of living days."  (I actually do it consciously on certain days.)  As I've said on many occasions, even in a previous blog post, time is very important to all of us.  And it just continues to tick away.  Every moment is valuable to us.  When we're waiting at a restaurant for a friend to show up - time is ticking.  When we watch the clock at the end of the week and there's two hours left before we can go home - time is ticking.  When we're pregnant and that human being that's been growing inside of us, and causes back pain and cramps and all the other physical and mental anguish (I'm just guessing cause I'll never be able to have children of my own.  The doctor told me that as a man it just wasn't going to happen.) hasn't shown any signs of trying to get out yet - time continues to tick away.  And it is in these moments that time slows down.  A minute/sixty seconds becomes something so long that we actually become emotional about it.  There are moments that we can actually hear the second hand make clicking noises letting us know that we are merely slaves and it is our master.  Tick, tick, tick, tick....  So, we try to control it.  We've seen so many different examples of this - even within our own household.  "Kids, you've got ten minutes and then we're leaving." said the mother who has been trying to get her kids in the van so she can drop them off at school.  Or the boss "The report is due by the end of the week.  This will really tell me how serious you are about that promotion."  Even in my own world, which I've painstakingly created using artificial lighting and the occasional walk-on performance of truly great performers, I am held and bound by time limits set by others.  "When do you think you could stop by and fix my furnace?" or "Can you call me when you're ready to start?" or "I will only be at the office in the next two minutes for maybe ten minutes and I'll have that check ready for you.  The one you've been waiting on for the past two weeks.  But if you don't make it within that time frame you'll have to wait another week or I can just mail it to you.  Which would you prefer?"  Yes, life is a waiting game.  In fact, one of the things I will enjoy most after death is the non-existence of time.  Of all the things that constrain me, time is, I feel, my worst friend.  And speaking of time, I have to wrap this up because I have to get ready.  For work.  Because it's that time.  My name is Rueuhy and I approve this blog.