Corporate America is stealing our time. I want mine back.

You open your browser, go to Google, search the name of some company, poke around on the website, click through a drop-down menu, and scroll and scroll and scroll until finally you find a phone number.

OK, good.

Ten minutes proving we’re human to a website. Twenty-seven minutes on hold. Forty-five minutes correcting a bill.

You dial and wait. There’s no ring; the voice comes on almost immediately. You don’t need to press eight for Spanish, so you wait a little longer. The menu resets, and you listen intently. Finally, you hear the directions for billing, so you press seven. Some more audio menus are read through, a few more buttons are pressed, and then finally you hear: “Please wait for the next available representative.”

Ah, finally. You’re there.

Not