I won't stay on hold.  To me, the worst invention is Call Waiting.  I remove it off every phone immediately.  Talking away to someone only to have their words obliterated by beeps which prompts you to, in essence to say, Hold on, let me see if someone more important is calling!!  I find that very rude, to put someone on hold rather than finish the conversation and then move on to the VM the other person has the option to leave.

Have not had this happen.

Depends on the person you are calling.

Paul S. Henderson, Realtor, Tacoma Washington I've never had anyone just leave me on hold forever. If it does get to be a while, I will hang up and call back.

I've never had that happen, Paul. I have been put on hold for far too long though. I don't make cold calls so my experiences with being on hold are generally when I'm trying to get service or information from a large company.

I don't feel like they are trying to get rid of me by putting me on hold. If they don't want to talk, they will not answer.

if I'm on hold for more than 10 seconds, I hang up...

Well thats not a bad song. But I agree I dont like being put on hold. Invest in a headset. I usually do work while I wait for someone in that situation.

I tend to annoy people on the phone when I am calling about a problem and feel I am dealing with an unreasonable person on the other end. Usually they just end up disconnecting the call.  I do not use profanity, but I excel at sarcasm.

Now Paul, what do you have against the Bee Gees?

Paul,

We just tell the caller, that we will call them back as soon as we finish the call.  I think that is the best way to handle it.  A

There are reasons for the hold button.

One is the person is very busy.

Another is, the person had a higher ranking person interrupt the current activity.

Another reason is the person has not had a great experience with the one on the other end of the phone and 'HOLD' suggests a cooling off period.

I have found just hitting redial actually works better getting past the queue, however, nothing will help if a caller is rude, abusive and unreasonable.

I haven't had any people doing this to me, Paul.  Though, typically when I call, I will ask them if this is a good time to talk.