[shoo]

> It's as if you called someone on the phone and said "Hi!" and then put them on hold!

I called an australian government phone line recently, i was queued, then informed i could press 1 to register for a callback. I pressed 1. Then I was prompted to say my name, I did that. Then I hung up.

Some time later, I was indeed called back - by a robot. The robot greeted me, informed me it was calling back, and requested that I pass the phone to <my name recorded from earlier>. The robot then queued me and prompted me to press 1 when <my name recorded from earlier> was on the line. Since that was me, I pressed 1. After a bit more time being queued, I was transferred to a human operator.

edit: this seems quite bemusing / irritating, but to give the designer of this callback mechanism a little more credit, it was a phone line that businesses would call -- it would not be uncommon for person A to call from a business phone line, with the callback to the company line being answered by some other person B.