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Has Vivaldi Gone?
Now in the Guardian:
Da da-da-da da da-da … Vivaldi’s Four Seasons is no longer the soundtrack to millions of people’s frustrated interactions with welfare bureaucracy, after the Department of Work and Pensions decided to drop it as the hold music on its telephone helplines ...
Five years after its introduction, a welfare rights advisers’ talkboard discussion suggested a key skill for anyone wishing to join their profession should include “the ability, while on the phone, to refrain from turning to your colleagues and saying ‘If I hear Vivaldi’s Four Seasons one more effin’ time …
The RightsNet talkboard would occasionally discuss possible alternatives to Vivaldi. Suggestions included You Keep Me Hangin’ On by the Supremes, Cliff Richard’s We Don’t Talk Anymore, Blondie’s Hanging on the Telephone, and the Smiths’ Still Ill.”
Benefits hotline drops anxiety-inducing Vivaldi clip as hold music
Now in the Guardian:
Da da-da-da da da-da … Vivaldi’s Four Seasons is no longer the soundtrack to millions of people’s frustrated interactions with welfare bureaucracy, after the Department of Work and Pensions decided to drop it as the hold music on its telephone helplines ...
Five years after its introduction, a welfare rights advisers’ talkboard discussion suggested a key skill for anyone wishing to join their profession should include “the ability, while on the phone, to refrain from turning to your colleagues and saying ‘If I hear Vivaldi’s Four Seasons one more effin’ time …
The RightsNet talkboard would occasionally discuss possible alternatives to Vivaldi. Suggestions included You Keep Me Hangin’ On by the Supremes, Cliff Richard’s We Don’t Talk Anymore, Blondie’s Hanging on the Telephone, and the Smiths’ Still Ill.”
Benefits hotline drops anxiety-inducing Vivaldi clip as hold music
Haha, brilliant!! I’ll be honest, I thought this would have made the news sooner but glad that the Guardian is on the case! :)
It is a very welcome change. But in the future when I am found rocking in the corner humming 4 Seasons endlessly and occasionally shouting ‘NO I said EMPLOYMENT AND SUPPORT ALLOWANCE’ - what will happen to the compensation claim?
The DWP has now, thankfully, changed the helpline music – after 14 years and lots of complaints. But this was never about the music itself, rather its misuse. Replacing Vivaldi was a relatively tiny policy change in the great scheme of DWP things, but it nonetheless provides an interesting case study, offering wider lessons for anyone interested in how government works: why did the DWP get it wrong in the first place? Why was it resistant to putting things right when people complained? And how was it finally persuaded to change its mind?
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether self-employed musicians can submit music for use on her Department’s helplines.
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2020-11-18/117247