Certainly not the first or last time this has been happening.....

I've only had to do this once before, when I was in Las Vegas last October - it was faster/easier to take an Uber to the Premium check in line @ McCarran from the strip than it was to wait four hours for AA to call me back - thankfully the agent took pity on my and put me in 1st for the re-booked flight. I should add that I was still on hold when I got to the agent and left the eternal hold music from hell on speakerphone until they asked me to hang up. :-)

Excerpted from MSN.COM posting citing WSJ story, link below:An American Airlines passenger who spent nearly four hours on hold with the airline's customer-service center grew so frustrated he drove 45 minutes to the airport to rebook his seats at the ticket counter.

Brain Driver, a radio station manager, needed to rebook his flight home after a business trip to Denver ended early, The Wall Street Journal reported. He said he initially tried to switch his flight using the airline's mobile service and website but was unable to do so.
An American Airlines passenger drove to Denver airport to rebook his seats after the airline's customer-service center left him on hold for nearly 4 hours (msn.com)