True that! I got through in my first attempt and was talking to an agent 21 minutes down the line - this is as against at least 4 attempts and a min wait time of 35 minutes in the past. Plus, the agent was super duper helpful - she spoke to me for 25 minutes and confirmed the following:
1. The progress bar is useless
2. My security hasn’t started yet - and the way things are going at Ottawa, it might be the new year before anyone touches it
3. Call centre agents can no longer ping officers or leave them messages on individual files - though she said life was much better when they could - seems like a cause worth fighting for as us candidates can at least influence call centre agents rather than the elusive visa officers!
4. She said she’s going to track all movements on my file like a hawk - cuz she wants to figure out why a file that’s clean is still taking more than 6 months!
All in all, we both got to let off some steam, though nothing much might come of it