Michael Anthony Groteke, 21 years ago today

It feels like just yesterday I posted wrote my annual post about Mike last year. I feel a little weird posting about this each year, since I’m all out of stories and anecdotes. It’s been 21 years since his death in a car accident on Dayton Yellow Springs road on February 8th, 1992. This is my one public ritual I do each year remembering him, though I wonder if perhaps I should move it to a less morbid date like his birthday, February 24. Maybe next year, though I doubt it since this is the day that I immediately associate with him.

Mike was such a fan of new technology, Apple Computer, and games, I often wonder what he’d be doing now and how he’d be interacting with all the current technology trends etc.  I also wonder how he would have reacted to Antioch closing and about the strange way the ‘revival’ played out. He certainly had mixed feelings (love/hate) regarding Antioch (as do I, I guess)

So here’s my annual tip of my hat to my lost friend. I still miss you Mike.

Is ‘on-hold’ music engineered to annoy?

Screen Shot 2013-01-25 at 10.00.08 AMI’ve heard that fast food restaurants pick colors and designs that make people uncomfortable enough to not want to stay there for very long. As I sit here on hold waiting for tech support I wonder if the really cheesy ‘almost jazz’ music and overly perky female voice recordings of ‘We know your time is valuable, please hold until the next available agent is available and they will be happy to assist you’ have picked is specifically to annoy callers to give up on the call.

I also wonder if they don’t really even start trying to answer the calls until 5 – 10 minutes have gone by, just to make sure people REALLY want to talk to someone. Are you really swamped at 9 AM EST? I doubt that.

Are there evil psychologists that help businesses do these things? It’s so annoying I have to believe no one picked this music by choice, they probably paid big money for recordings that would decrease the load on their help desks.

May karma strike them down.