Please Hold

will say is I'm sorry you're having this problem we will do our best to fix it where I'm sorry we can't help you with this but we hope you have a good day and the mind reading robot really completes the picture by painting something extremely dangerous something that we're no longer in control of when you realize just how unprotected we are now that we can no longer even think for ourselves and like the robot we're continuing to follow algorithms that others have decided for us the speaker is shouting

wonderful and great and getting angry but it doesn't really matter because the robot is a an emotionless machine whereas a person in a call center could eventually lose their patience and respond the robot can only listen and respond for the script so even his anger is futile even his anger is being wasted and the repetition of these words now completely finalizes this loss of any sense or any real meaning or value in them now for us these are also just meaningless repeated words just like they are for the speaker and

highlighting that the speaker is actually paying for the phone call even though the robot is saying that it's free also finalizes the deception because this whole thing is a deception just like humanity is deceiving ourselves if we think that this is the way forward is what the speaker is arguing we are being convinced that all of this is cheaper quicker more efficient as per the principles of capitalism but in reality it's just a way for companies to gain more money rather than care about what the consumers thinking about

their customer experience this is the future the refrain once again shows that the the economy between the speaker and his wife the wife accepts all of this without question and again going back to gender roles this could be a reference to how perhaps in childhood women are often taught more often often sorry are taught more often to just accept the reality of their situation to just deal with it as it is whereas the husband isn't accepting of it at all and the repetition of all these choices drives

home the idea that even if there is seemingly a choice the idea of there being a choice is Just an Illusion because the number of options is limited and you're not the one choosing those options everything has become optimized to the point where humans are indistinguishable from robots so even by escaping this maze you just go straight into another one ice cream agent and then cut off and my wife says this is the future oh we are already there and it's the same as the present your future here she says and I'm talking to a robot

on the phone and he's giving me no options and the guys of countless Alternatives we appreciate your patience please hold I in a client and knock music please hold I in the client and not music please hold Aina Klein and music and the robot transfers me to himself your call is important to us he says and my translator says this means your call was not important to them and my wife says this is the future and my translator says please hold means that for all your accomplishments the only way you can now meet your needs is by

looting wonderful sister robot he screams agent and he's cut off all it takes is one word and the line the line completely blanks as the robo transfers him this represents the pace that human conversation has been reduced to it also references our attention span really because who's willing to watch a 25 minute video when there's a 15 second video the same thing with conversation the robot doesn't want to hear please transfer me to an agent as soon as he hears the word agent the robot doesn't hear he just transfers the call it's not

really his conversation it's not really his problem to deal with and even when he's given a chance to scream agent again it's beyond his control he screams agent and he's cut off even if he wanted to stay on the line he's not given a choice the robot decides for him once again the short Moon of syllabic words really show how Humanity has reduced its communication I mean when you just have to click yes or no you're not exactly talking to another person like you were in the past the guise of countless

Alternatives is a dystopian image of people who promised that they would do better that there are alternatives for the future that we have your needs in mind without really carrying through on it I think this could also be a metaphor for the people who are silenced when they want a different option even I mean even his wife has turned away from it I keep coming back to these ideas because that's what the poet is trying to drive through he repeats these ideas throughout the entire poem that his wife

is not on his side that there are no options that he's constantly being told to please hold all of these things are constantly being repeated just like the poet wants to drive home to us that our entire life is being run on repeat and now classic music by Mozart is being used as wedding music I mean even like really good music and high culture and things that have historically held value are now just being used as an everyday mundane sort of thing and something that should be calm and really Pleasant like

Mozart is now a source of irritation and the use of the expletive of course shows that the speaker has lost patience and there's a use of Peace here and please on repeat it shows the way that the speaker is actually saying these words it's almost as if he's spitting them in Anger he's Furious he really doesn't want to deal with this and and the translator is like his inner inner voice the sarcastic version of the narrator or of the customer voice the translator is saying what's really happening the

things that people don't usually say to be polite Looting of course is very exaggerated it's a comical addition but it really shows the breakdown of society that now the only way for his needs to be met is by looting by robbing because society that promised him that anyone who works hard can achieve their dreams is not carrying through looting could also be referring to stealing time so he can only get back his humanity and his ability to choose and freedom of will if they turn back time and they go back to

the past where all of this was not his everyday reality not the future that's already here looting also brings the very real world in looting brings to mind the issues of poverty this divide between classes all of these issues that we don't tend to think about on a daily life on our on a day-to-day basis as our life being replaced by other occupations really we appreciate you and your call was not important to us also once again shows that companies no longer really care about their customers because it's not so important

in the digital world when you don't see them face to face and you don't rely on them or or on being a part of your local community the use of the swear word here as well it's an expression of taboo language because the speaker wants to assert his freedom of Will and to pretend that he still has any semblance of it by defying social conventions the conventions that the very Society he's in and the Very Society that's breaking down his individuality and character says that he shouldn't say the customer

service voice is the voice you have to use when you're not allowed to really show your emotions when you have to be constantly Pleasant and the solution that Society has brought in instead of making life easier and happier is replacing those people with robots who really truly can't show emotions and can get frustrated at the situation the last three lines are a separate stanza because they're very distinct they provide a pause just like he wants us to pause and to really reflect on the situation please hold please grow old

please grow cold please do what you're told grow old grow cold this is the future please hold these lines are imperative just like the robot is being is ordering us around and being itself ordered around we as the reader are also told what to do there's a lot of linguistic Specialties here such as the use of punctuation or repetition or rhyme and it really shows how humans have a grasp on language and I think that it's particularly highlighted here to show that our use of language is different from the robots

who merely says yes or no or please hold these are your options we have far more variety in our speech and in our imagination and the poet really urges us to use it but in these last lines he does start to become more important than he was previously perhaps he's becoming more mechanical more automated just like the robot representing that potentially if we don't intervene in the future we will fall slave to the machine and the message of please hold changes as well depending on how the speaker says this

because we go from please stay on the call in please hold from the robot side into please hold as a message from the speaker that's telling us to pause and enjoy the small things in life and the poem is deliberately funny in some of these moments by referencing the language that the call center is used by satirizing all this it's meant to show us just how absurd the situation actually is when you think about it and the language being in the present tense but also saying that the future is here it's a

paradox really you can't say it and it highlights just how strange the whole situation is for the speaker which is why he feels so alienated the progression of hold old code is a warning that life might pass while we wait for it to just be better while listening to other people's orders because of course grow cold grow dead the last lines sound like the speaker is final desperate attempt to reach us