2004-02-14 - 1:57 p.m.

I was going to talk about customer service. I was going to be witty. Then I realized I had less than 4 hours of sleep. Maybe less than that. I am seeing things due to my lack of sleep. Or, at least, the lack of sleep is affecting my mind. Really though, I am seeing things. Not anything interesting, mind you, since everytime I look at the things I see, they go away. And not having enough sleep is affecting my mind, did I say that?

Anyway, my comments about Customer Service boils down to this:

People are idiots. Which is not to say that people can act idiotic at times, or that sometimes people make dumb mistakes or than an occasional mental slip can occur or that most people can be stupid. What I mean is that people are, inherent to their being, idiots. I'd say 80% of the population possess an intelligence below the mean. Most people couldn't build a fire, explain an internal combustion engine or calculate their mortgage payments. I don't know how we operate as a species.

What's more, people have completely turned the rules of courtesy on their head in recent years. I am the only person in the office who calls anyone by their last name. That is not unusual these days, but it represents a change in how manners and grammar are viewed. What's more, it is now more impolite to speak over someone who has interrupted you than it is to interrupt someone. People have this weird idea to be offended when you talk over them interrupting you but not when you interrupt them. We suddenly have this idea that if someone interrupts you, their idea must be more important than yours, it is a power issue and you are suppose to defer to them because they have the power to interrupt you. Of course, most of the stuff people say is not worth saying at all, 'cause they are idiots.

Immigrants in this nation tend to be more conciliatory, polite and competent than most Americans. I think this has something with the American culture of entitlement, that Americans can call in about their FastLane or their phone bill or whatever, from their car, while also driving and talking with a client and receiving a fax all while having none of the relevant information at hand, and companies just roll over for the consumer to the point of making their own policies irrelevant. Like when a company wants you to pick a PIN (not a "PIN number" and certainly not a "personal PIN number" nor is it the "NAFTA agreement." I wish they taught acronyms in school ) and then when you, as a slack-jawed, mouthbreathing moron forget the number you selected, the rep on the phone just ignores it or asks for an easily attainable piece of information, like your mother's maiden name. And we wonder why identify theft is so hot.

Management never wants to be given more responsibilities but always wants more power. There is a threat of layoffs here due to low call-volume, my boss told me that, to my face and on the QT. So, wanting to save the company money, save my coworkers' jobs and earn points with management, I write him a letter stating that if management, i.e. him, engaged in a policy of aggressively recruiting people to transfer to other departments to keep them in the company and avoid training and administrative fees associated with hiring and firing. Well, he didn't just say no, he told me to tell my coworkers of these positions, which is completely different from management encouraging this sort of transfer. So now I should keep an eye on the job postings and recommend other people transfer. What the fuck? Why am I in a position of encouarging people to move?

In conclusion, customer service people hate you guts, they hate their lousy jobs, and they hate everyone they work with. Their disdain is veiled only by the whatever arcane metric system is used to judge them and every minute of their working lives is control by petty, power-mad managers. Their withered inhuman hearts beat with rage at your very existence, but you should be nice to them, cause we know where you live.

I'm going to drink whisky till the pain goes away-

-Jesse