Murphy's Logic: Businesses should bring back the old-fashioned busy signal

Murphy’s Logic: Proper telephone etiquette OPINION: In his latest installment of Murphy’s Logic, Steve holds the line on proper telephone etiquette for businesses.

When was the last time you got a busy signal on a phone call?

It used to happen all the time. When a person or business was tied up on another call, or calls, their line would ring busy.

These days, there are few, if any, “phone lines.” Every call goes through -- to a digital answering system.

On a personal cellphone, it’s voicemail, just like an old-fashioned answering machine. But if you’re calling a business or utility or a call centre, it’s something much more complicated – and more sinister.

It starts with a disembodied voice thanking us for our call, which, we are assured, is very important -- although apparently not important enough to be answered by a human being.

We’re encouraged to press “one” for this service or “two” for that. But usually, after a minute or two of over-modulated music, the disembodied voice returns to express regret about long waits due to “higher-than-normal” call volumes. This message often repeats for many minutes, sometimes even hours.

This has been going on for years and it got much worse during the pandemic -- long enough that these “higher-than-normal” call volumes are now considered the new normal.

So, any business that really believes our calls are important should hire more people to answer them, or just give us an old-fashioned busy signal so we don’t waste any more time waiting … and waiting …