"Your call is very important to us."

Is it, though?

Because I've been listening to the same twelve seconds of instrumental jazz for forty-three minutes, and I'm beginning to suspect my call is being held hostage.

We've all been there. You call a company with a simple question, navigate seventeen menu options, enter your account number three times, and finally hear those dreaded words:

"Please hold for the next available representative."

And so begins one of modern life's most frustrating experiences.

In this episode of Wait... Why Do We Do That?, we're investigating the surprisingly fascinating history of hold music. Who invented it? Why do companies use it? And does listening to terrible music actually make waiting feel shorter?

We'll discover how a telephone patent from the 1960s helped change the way businesses handle calls, how a teenager's synthesizer recording became one of the most recognisable pieces of music in the world, and why our brains make five minutes on hold feel like an entire geological era.

Along the way, we'll tackle some of customer service's greatest mysteries:

• Why are companies always experiencing unusually high call volumes?
• How does an estimated eight-minute wait somehow become twelve minutes after you've already waited seven?
• Why does the music stop just long enough to make you think a human has answered?
• And why does the person who finally picks up ask for every piece of information you've already entered?

We'll also explore the psychology of waiting, the economics of call centres, and how technology is finally allowing our phones to listen to hold music so we don't have to.

Because perhaps the strangest thing about hold music isn't that somebody invented it.

It's that we invented increasingly sophisticated technology to help us wait for somebody to answer a telephone.

And after sixty years of innovation, the best customer service experience remains remarkably simple.

Someone answers. They understand the problem. And they help.

Preferably before the next financial year.

Because apparently, there's a reason for almost everything.

Even if it isn't a particularly good one.

Send us Fan Mail

We buy grass seed. We water it. We fertilize it. We encourage it to grow.

And then, the moment it does...

We cut it.

Every week. For decades.

And if the neighbour's grass looks slightly greener than ours? Well, now it's personal.

In this episode of Wait... Why Do We Do That?, we investigate one of the strangest traditions of modern homeownership: the perfectly maintained lawn.

We'll travel back to the grand estates of European aristocrats, where having enormous areas of land that produced absolutely nothing useful was apparently a wonderful way to demonstrate how wealthy you were.

We'll discover how an English engineer revolutionized grass cutting, how the lawn became part of the American Dream, and how an eighteenth-century status symbol somehow turned into a compulsory Saturday morning chore.

Along the way, we'll explore the rise of the lawn care industry, the neighbour whose grass looks like it belongs at Augusta National, the extraordinary social consequences of allowing a dandelion to exist, and why some homeowners associations seem to take grass more seriously than international diplomacy.

We'll also ask whether our obsession with perfectly green lawns makes sense anymore, what alternatives exist, and why we're spending so much money maintaining something that nature was perfectly happy to grow for free.

And perhaps the greatest irony of all?

The aristocracy had gardeners. We have Saturday.

They had sweeping estates. We have a quarter-acre lot.

They had sheep. We have a $600 lawnmower and a neighbour judging our edging.

So the next time you're outside mowing the lawn, wondering why you're spending your weekend cutting something you've spent all week encouraging to grow...

You'll finally know who to blame.

Because apparently, there's a reason for almost everything.

Even if it isn't a particularly good one.

Send us Fan Mail

You step into an elevator. Press your floor. Then press the Close Door button.

Nothing.

So you press it again.

Still nothing.

Naturally, you press it another six times. Because apparently the elevator didn't understand how serious you were the first seven.

But here's the question...

Does that button actually do anything?

In this episode of Wait... Why Do We Do That?, we investigate one of the most suspicious buttons in modern life: the elevator Close Door button.

We'll discover why some buttons really do work, why others seem determined to ignore you, and how elevator safety rules, accessibility requirements and automated systems all play a part.

We'll also travel back to the days when elevators had actual human operators, explore the psychology of placebo buttons, and discover why the same button that ignores you on your way to lunch can become essential during special operating modes.

And, of course, we'll tackle the really important questions.

Why do we press elevator buttons repeatedly, as though machines respond to enthusiasm?

Why does everyone instinctively face the doors?

And what does it say about your character when you see someone running toward the elevator... and press Close Door anyway?

Because perhaps the button isn't broken.

Perhaps the elevator has simply received your request, reviewed it carefully, and decided it doesn't report to you.

So the next time you step into an elevator, press Close Door. Once.

And if someone appears at the far end of the lobby...

Well, that's between you, the Door Open button, and your conscience.

Because apparently, there's a reason for almost everything.

Even if it isn't a particularly good one.

Send us Fan Mail