Thread by @108

hey @Chase . . . if the wait time to talk to the Fraud Department about my account that you all just locked is Greater Than One Hour, maybe don't play such huge loud xylophone and ukulele hold music. just play like an ocean sound--something i can listen to while working . . . :-(

the song changes after every time your robot butts in to say "please stay on the line" . . . you won't even let me get comfortable with one song . . . while i'm here can i just say that i'm going to buy a TV in one month, so if you see that, yes, that was me--no need to lock

also i'll be doing my taxes in about four months and would appreciate it if you implement a feature that lets me search my account activity for specific transactions. wells fargo has had this feature since like 1996 . . . it'd be really helpful . . .

i mean i appreciate you lookin out for my account security! that's great. i don't know what i'd do if someone made this size of a transfer fraudulently . . . i'd probably just Go Broke!! all i'm actually asking for is some much, much, much less exciting music.

i am a user experience design consultant with a decade of experience, by the way, and my twitter DMs are open if you want some charts and graphs to support this!!

okay, the track right now literally sounds like it must have the title "Having A Nervous Breakdown At Church In Full View Of My Navy-Bound Identical Twin Sons"

while i'm here in this thread, let me just say to any 1990s math rock bands who run out of "intentionally" bad titles for their songs that my twitter DMs *are* open

gonna listen to don caballero for like fifteen minutes at LEAST after this is over

remember when ryuichi sakamoto did up a spotify playlist for a japanese restaurant in manhattan? he should do that for phone wait music. i'm 99,000% serious open.spotify.com/playlist/0Eh3D…

the @nytimes piece about that playlist, if you didn't hear about it. it's a fun story! nytimes.com/2018/07/23/din…

every (royalty-free?) song on this chase phone hold playlist has a similar arrangement--guitars, ukuleles, xylophones, tin-can drums--and similar over-the-top triumphant "upbeat" melody. each melody's chorus contains a sort of crayon-drawing of a radio-friendly "millennial" hook

it's impossibly--almost fascinatingly!--distracting. i've been sitting here for twenty-nine minutes failing to do anything aside from pay bone-cold attention to every molecule of the music. buddy, i got WORK to do over here!!

subtracting the twin attractions of Celebrity Voice and Boring Words from the radio-friendly disneylike Pop Songs that prevail today reveals this absolutely fearsome skeleton. this sonic ruin has dripped dry of the memories of any culture that once grazed it

thinking a lot about this 2008 interview with (citrus frontguy) emori takeaki while i behold these tunes neojaponisme.com/2008/05/26/int…

anyway, my Estimated Hold Time is still Greater Than One Hour, so listen to citrus's excellent final EP right now while i can't be musically distracted.

and for more on music "designed" to harmonize with modern physical spaces, moods, and products, check out ryuichi sakamoto's "CM" compilation

and its counterpart, the "TV" compilation

after Exactly One Hour, a guy broke in, asked for the first four and last four digits of my debit card number, and then said "ah, yeah, ok" and hung up. my account works again

update: they locked my account again!! this is getting hilarious(ly annoying)

after twenty minutes on hold, i completed the verification procedure again. the operator this time said "please don't try sending the transfer again." they recommended i go to a branch, withdraw cash, and give it to my client "in person if possible", "for maximum security"