Please hold! Flashcards
(10 cards)
1
Q
The Limitations and Frustrations of Technology
A
- “Please Hold” satirizes an all-too-familiar situation: the speaker tries to navigate an automated phone system only to find themselves growing ever more frustrated. As they are put on “hold” repeatedly, directed in circles by an impersonal “robot,” they become increasingly exasperated and even hopeless. It’s clear they’re never going to get their “needs” met through this computerized system, yet there’s no denying this is how the world works now; they can either accept that this “is the future” or be left behind to “grow old” and “cold” (i.e., die). In this way, the poem illustrates how infuriating and isolating modern technology can be. “Please Hold” also implicitly questions the effectiveness—and, perhaps, the morality—of such soulless systems, which make life colder by devaluing human interaction.
- The speaker’s experience with an automated phone system is annoying, repetitive, and fruitless, illustrating how technology doesn’t always benefit those it’s meant to help. The speaker is given “countless options” as they talk “to a robot on the phone,” but none of these options actually addresses their “needs.” Indeed, they feel as if they are “paying a robot for doing nothing.”
2
Q
This is the …
… to my needs.
A
- The short sentences and repetition make the poem tonally flat from the start, illustrating the idea that while the future has arrived, nothing has changed. (In other words, time itself seems flat and repetitive.) “Your future, here” seems to indicate that the wife is handing the speaker the phone, but the disjointed, paratactic style of these lines is disorienting. The speaker’s confusion will grow—and the parataxis will continue—as the poem goes on.
- The speaker then says that they’re “talking to a robot on the phone.” This robot (automated answering system) provides “countless options,” but none of those options actually address the speaker’s “needs.” Whatever task they’re trying to complete, the robot doesn’t help. The repetition of “robot” in lines 4 and 5 helps establish a monotonous tone, which already makes the call feel tedious. Instead of getting on with their day, the speaker has to listen to endless irrelevant “options.”
- The poem is written in free verse, so it doesn’t follow any meter or rhyme scheme. As a result, its style is conversational, direct, and purposely “unpoetic” (like a soulless robot). This long opening stanza (49 lines) pulls the reader in and won’t let them go—much like a phone call that should take five minutes but ends up taking an hour.
3
Q
Wonderful, says the …
… great account number,
A
- These lines are full of parallelism and repetition, mimicking the fixed, scripted nature of these automated phone calls. Meanwhile, the robot’s tone is overly enthusiastic to compensate for the lack of human interaction. In reality, there’s nothing “Wonderful” or “Great” about having a phone or account number; this friendliness is simply meant to distract.
- This numbing epistrophe conveys the coldness of the interaction. To the company the robot represents, the speaker is just a statistic, one of countless people who need to be managed. There’s no personal relationship between the speaker and the people they’re paying, or the people who handle their money. In fact, to the company, the customer is just a “number.”
- The over-the-top repetition also helps establish the poem as satire. When the speaker spits back the words “wonderful” and “great,” their tone is scathingly sarcastic, highlighting the absurdity of making polite conversation with a robot.
4
Q
but I can …
… for doing nothing.
A
- Despite their supposedly “wonderful telephone number” and “great account number,” the speaker says that they “can find nothing to meet [their] needs / on the telephone.” The veneer of friendliness doesn’t change the fact that this automated system is confusing, frustrating, and inconvenient.
- Indeed, the speaker next says that their “money” ultimately “pay[s] for nothing.” It isn’t clear what task they’re hoping to accomplish, but clearly, this conversation isn’t helping them do it. The speaker is “paying a robot for doing nothing,” and even the account that’s supposedly theirs is “really the robot’s account.”
- Epistrophe—the repetition of “account” and “nothing” at the ends of lines—contrasts what the speaker is trying to accomplish (some mundane task, perhaps of a financial nature) with what they’re able to accomplish (nothing). The ongoing repetition of “robot” emphasizes the cold, inhuman nature of the call.
- Meanwhile, diacope (the repetition of “money”) emphasizes what this interaction is all about: in the end, the speaker is just one more source of revenue for the company. The polyptoton of “pay”/”paying” reinforces the same idea. This call is purely transactional; the robot’s friendliness isn’t genuine. The system is designed to fake human warmth so that it can profit off human “needs.”
5
Q
This call is …
… is the future.
A
- In line 18, the robot informs the speaker that “This call is free of charge.” Infuriated, the speaker contradicts the robot, “shout[ing]” back that they are in fact “paying for it”—though perhaps not in the way the robot means. If nothing else, this call is driving up the speaker’s “telephone bill” and costing them time, energy, and peace of mind.
- Lines 20-23 bring even more repetition. The sarcastic phrases “wonderful account” and “great telephone bill” echo the earlier “great account number” and “wonderful telephone number.” Line 22 (“Wonderful, says the robot”) is an exact repetition of line 7, and line 23 (“And my wife says, This is the future”) is an inversion of line 1 (“This is the future, my wife says”). The slight variations only highlight how inane this interaction is: the call is going in circles, accomplishing nothing.
- The wife’s insistence that “This is the future” makes her sound mechanical as well. Her repetitive voice begins to resemble the robot’s, suggesting that technology is eroding whatever makes people human. The “future” she keeps referring to isn’t exactly a pleasant one; the poem implies that everyone will soon be participating, willingly or unwillingly, in this impersonal and vacuous script.
6
Q
I’m sorry, I …
… just as robotic.
A
- After the wife speaks, the robot responds that he doesn’t “understand.” (Perhaps the system has registered but can’t process her words.) “Please say Yes or No,” the robot instructs the speaker, illustrating how limited people’s choices are when interacting with automated systems.
- Then the robot expands these options slightly: the speaker can say “Yes, No, Repeat, or Menu.” (Through these last two options, the speaker can prompt the robot to repeat their last instruction or return to the main menu of the system.) They can even “say Agent” if they want to speak to a real person—though this person will admittedly be “just as robotic” as the robot himself. That is, even if the speaker can get through to a human, the human will cycle through a fixed script just as the robot does. Whatever choice the speaker makes will produce the same result, meaning they don’t have any real choice at all.
- The poem continues to sound satirical in large part due to its repetition, which creates a flat, robotic tone. The poem’s depiction of the robot is also satirical; in a real-life call of this sort, the robot wouldn’t admit that a human agent “is just as robotic.” This detail makes the poem less strictly realistic; the poet is exaggerating a real-world situation in order to highlight its absurdity.
7
Q
I scream Agent! …
… of countless alternatives.
A
- In fact, lines 31-36 are almost identical to lines 1-6. This prolonged repetition makes it clear that the speaker isn’t getting anywhere; the phone call’s going in circles, breeding more and more frustration. Time itself seems flat; “the future” echoes “the present.”
- While repeated phrases can make a poem more musical, the repetition here is so relentless that it has the opposite effect. The language grows dull, and everything blends together. This is exactly the problem the speaker faces: talking to an automated system is boring and fruitless. (Their interactions with their wife sound monotonous as well, so perhaps the speaker’s frustration extends beyond technology.)
- The speaker complains that the robot offers them “no options / in the guise of countless alternatives.” In other words, the robot keeps listing things the speaker can say (“Yes, No,” etc.), but the speaker knows that none of these options will cause anything new to happen. It’s as if they’re stuck in an infinite loop.
8
Q
We appreciate your …
… fucking Kleine Nachtmusik.
A
- The back-and-forth shifts between “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” and “Please hold” feel jarring—and realistic. Anyone who’s ever been on hold knows: just as the listener starts to get swept up in the hold music, a robotic voice interrupts (only to tell the listener to keep waiting). The epistrophe in lines 37-49 (the repetition of “Please hold”) builds a sense of relentless tedium. The variation in line 40—and the use of an expletive—conveys the speaker’s mounting anger. They just want this phone call to be over.
9
Q
And the robot …
… is the future.
A
- The robot then claims that the speaker’s “call is important,” but the speaker says their “translator” tells them the opposite. This isn’t a literal translator but the speaker’s own perception: if their call really mattered, they wouldn’t have been talking with a robot this whole time. But the speaker’s wife assures the speaker that “This is the future,” implying that this is just how society works now. The speaker had better get used to it, because nothing’s going to change.
- This repetition continues to create a flat, lifeless tone, capturing the tedium of spending hours on hold. It also highlights the gap between what the company wants the speaker to believe (that their call matters to someone) and the poorly concealed truth (their call doesn’t matter to anyone). It seems there’s no room for human “needs” in the future; again, the poem suggests that technology isn’t about helping people so much as it is about profiting off them
10
Q
And my translator …
… future. Please hold.
A
- In other words, waiting patiently on the phone is never going to get the speaker anywhere. The company doesn’t actually care about meeting the customer’s needs, regardless of what they claim. The only way the speaker will accomplish something is through “looting”—the kind of theft that typically happens during rioting or wartime. This word marks a startling break from the monotonous language of the previous lines. Ir suggests that the speaker is thinking about waging war on all this dehumanizing technology, or on the companies that leverage it against people.
- The poem then ends with the robot addressing the speaker. Once more, the robot’s language is satirically exaggerated—it may even be what the speaker’s internal “translator” hears rather than what the robot literally says. Notice the abundant anaphora (the repetition of “Please,” “Please grow,” and “Grow”) and epistrophe (the repetition of “cold”) in these final lines
- The heightened repetition suggests that if the speaker doesn’t rebel against this system, their wait will go on forever. They’ve been put on hold indefinitely; the robot is essentially telling them they might as well go die, because their needs will never be met. The instruction to “Grow old,” in particular, implies that technology wastes people’s time and alienates older people who can’t keep up with constant changes. This “future” expects people simply to comply—and waste away doing so. The poem thus critiques the way modern technology exploits human needs rather than respecting or addressing them.
