Ideas

That Dropped Call With Customer Service? It Was on Purpose.

Endless wait times and excessive procedural fuss—it’s all part of a tactic called “sludge.”

First published in The Atlantic on June 29, 2025

by Chris Colin, The Atlantic
July 24, 2025 | reading time: 21 Min.

In hindsight I’ll say: I always thought going crazy would be more exciting—roaming the street in a bathrobe, shouting at fruit. Instead I spent a weary season of my life saying representative. Speaking words and numbers to robots. Speaking them again more clearly, waiting, getting disconnected, finally reaching a person but the wrong person, repeating my story, would I mind one more brief hold. May my children never see the emails I sent, or the unhinged delirium with which I pressed 1 for agent.

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