That was a good post, but I had to sit on hold way too long to read it because Blogger is slow - what are you going to do about this slow loading Blogger? Eh, sonny?
Hold time complaints are a threshold management problem.
In the web hosting world, if a site is too slow, people try to reload it. Due to the design of dynamic web pages, TCP/IP, and other issues, servers don't always notice that they've stopped the old connections.. so one impatient person can often account for 2-4 visitors' worth of load. You have to keep your site responsive enough to keep people from refreshing or suddenly things balloon out of control.
Same with hold times. Once you reach a certain point, people start getting angry and agitated and make their calls take much longer than normal (not just complaining about hold, but they're more likely to demand resolution, a manager, lack faith in your ability to call them back, etc.) The problem is that when you keep ahead of the threshold, many call centers suddenly see numbers telling them that they're spending too much on manpower. Oh, hold times are way down, we can slow hiring / let people go.
It does not work this way! Letting just that one person go could put you over the threshold and suddenly times skyrocket out of proportion again.
Moral of the story: Managers are dumb and inexperienced.
Managers.... dumb... inexperienced???
Surely you jest, Sabre!
I have never met a dumb manager in my life!
Its the same way in IT support departments, so I've seen. If you have a good team that resolves issues quickly and prevents new issues from popping up, managers look and see that numbers are dropping. Then they decide to layoff or transfer people, thinking they can't justify the headcount.
And David, that's EXACTLY why I could not work in customer service, it would drive me up a wall.
My manager's pretty smart and I like him a lot, but every time he tries to do anything he gets this huge counterpush from the bureaucracy.
When he first started, he was flying around and counting up headsets so we can all get some, preparing training programs...
Nowadays he's got a bit of a kicked puppy look to him. And we never did get our headesets. 
Customer service is frustrating. But it is engaging and high stimulus, which is very good for my ADD. So it's mixed.
...now I really want a taco.
And I commented on the WRONG post! Doh!
Oh well, it stays because I can't edit it. And its funnier that way.
Commenting by HaloScan
