I had some issues with what is now my former bank earlier this week that required me to call one of those automated help lines that have become the norm for customer service these days.

Gone are the days when we could just run up to the local office and have folks here in our community solve our problems.

No, now, phone bank employees in far-flung parts of the globe now have the responsibility of trying to help us with our problems.

The person on the phone might try to tell you they’re John from Kansas, but the lilt of an accent I often hear tells me they ain’t in Kansas anymore, nor have they ever been.

And that’s only if you can actually get to anyone on the phone, after entering in a series of numbers that may or may not include your social security number, your account number, your secret passcode, your phone number, Jenny’s phone number from that Tommy Tutone song and Jean Valjean’s prisoner number from “Les Miserables.”

If you somehow manage to pass that numerical nonsense, you’ll likely be greeted with some monotonous computer voice telling you to wait on the line for the next available representative.

This is the point where your life will start to oddly resemble scenes from Dante’s “Purgatorio.”

If you’re lucky, the automated service you’re calling will have some sort of reservation function that will allow them to call you back so you don’t have to stay on the line for the possible 30- to 45-minute wait.

If you’re unlucky, like yours truly, the automated service will offer you that function, but it won’t actually work — you mash the correct button to make a reservation, but it tells you to keep holding on the line.

And so, for the next hour or so, the phone stays on speaker mode while you wait them out. If you dear readers are anything like me, that hour might play out something like this:

2 minutes in – This is the worst hold music ever. Who writes a duet for harp and banjo?

6 minutes in – So, this is the only song? And it’s on an endless loop – I’d be okay with them paying a little cash to get a good song. “In A Gadda Da Vida” lasts like 20 minutes; surely that would work.

10 minutes in – Do they only have one person working the phones? How could it possibly be taking this long?

15 minutes in – If I hear that robot voice tell me someone will “be with me momentarily” one more time, I’m going to scream. We passed “momentarily” about 10 minutes ago. “Momentarily” means in a moment, not some nebulous future time that I may never see.

22 minutes in – This is how I die. Waiting on the phone listening to the Backwoods Symphony in A Flat Minor.

37 minutes in – I really want to hang up, but I’ve spent this long on the phone and I’m ready to tear into these people for making me wait this long.

49 minutes in – Have I done something to offend the Almighty? Is this His way of making me pay for some sort of sin or slight? If so, well played, God. Well played.

63 minutes in – “Hello, sir. How can we assist you?”

Of course, your response may differ from mine.

Crying and telling them you love them because you weren’t sure you’d ever hear a human voice again doesn’t work for all of us.

Cliff McCollum is managing editor of Gulf Coast Media. He can be reached at cliff@gulfcoastmedia.com.