November 19, 2014 --

A few weeks ago, LPR called the New York State Tax Department on a personal matter. After holding the phone for forty minutes and 27 seconds of assurances how important this phone call was, LPR hung up. By luck, LPR saw another phone number on a letter form the tax department, tried that number, and got a message providing another number in case of emergency.

LPR determined that this constituted an emergency and got through, after nearly an hour on the phone. This has prompted that admittedly paranoid thought: is it possible that when days are particularly dull at our large private (I think, here, of Yahoo! -- which also does not respond to written entreaties) and public bureaucracies, the beseiged employees engage in phone pool, betting on how long a caller will wait before hanging up?