yes, i would love to hold

i feel like some days i spend the better part of my in office hours holding my phone to my face...not actually talking...but rather listening to the smooth sounds of the hold button. which to be quiet honest, gets on my nerves. when did we decide as a society that we would accept a 15 minute hold? when did we decide that it was ok to schedule 30 minutes of time to have a 30 second conversation? and better yet, when did we decide that other people were so unimportant that we show no remorse for stealing valuable minutes of their life so that we can fiddle fart around and warm up to the idea of picking up the phone and listening to their concern? clearly, i do not find this amusing.
i recently made 4 different phone calls to talk to one person who then told me they were not really sure who i should talk to. mind you, these 4 calls took nearly 8 hours. with each call i repeated the same pattern: dial, listen to menu, choose a department, wait in line once i was transferred to the department, say hello to someone i don't understand, share my concern, hear a long pause, then be told i was not calling the right place. (repeat times 4...however, the 4th try ends with 'well i don't know who handles that.')
is it my imagination or did i at one part in my life make a phone call, talk to a human who was sincerely helpful, hold for 1 minute in the event that that human needed to transfer me to another human, resolve an issue, hang up? i feel in my heart that this used to happen. and you know what, it was wonderful. i used to think that people cared about other individuals, that people listened to concerns, and that people cared enough about their jobs that they wanted to do it to the best of their ability.
now i know that there are a few phone warriors out there who take their jobs seriously and work hard to make people happy. i know this, i just don't know them personally. so for now i reckon i will continue to hold. continue to stew. and continue to share my concerns over and over and over until someone hears my southern english and responds in kind.