The psychology of hold music has come a long way since the 80s – as I found out when lost in the tax service’s musical fog

There is a big tax deadline in the US this week, when everyone who deferred filing earlier in the year faces the final due date. As a result, if you need to call the IRS – the Internal Revenue Service – you face an automated message informing you that the waiting time is “longer than 60 minutes”. This is its toe-in-the-water way of preparing you for the fact that the waiting time is actually 110 minutes.

I know this, because I rang the IRS four times in two days. That’s almost eight hours of being on hold, an entire working day, during which the background to my life was a musical dirge punctuated every 10 minutes with the update: “Our representatives are still helping other customers. Please continue to hold.”

Related: The $42 phone call: IRS budget cuts mean half of taxpayers will be ignored

The chairs are amazing. It’s worth a trip uptown just for the back support