Let me tell you a story of two phone calls I recently made.
The first one was to the magazine, Psychology Today. I wanted to talk to someone about the infestation of right-wing trolls on their website.
For some months now, every single time a poster publishes something liberal or progressive, out come the flying monkeys to bombard that poster with unimaginative, inflammatory comments about how we beat crooked Hillary, but we’re still in danger from illegals and white genocide. (As a sample, there are four— count them, four comments there if you have a strong stomach.)
It’s been happening with enough regularity, in fact, that I believe these dudes have an action alert on whatever site they come from, to come to PT and bombard anything liberal with a dose of good ol’ fashioned rightie social proof. Pwned!!
For the sake of sane people reading the comments, I’ve been posting some backtalk of my own— but I’ve wondered, throughout, where are the mods? Are they so afraid of being accused of violating these jokers’ free speech, that they allow their guest posters— the poster in the link is an acclaimed addiction counselor from Las Vegas— to be abused like that? I’m concerned it might stop some of them from posting at all. Which, of course, is exactly what the flying monkeys want.
So I set about to find the mods. I called the 800 number for Psychology Today, and asked to speak to their digital department.
Who promptly told me he wasn’t the right person to speak to. That the people who moderated the website were unavailable. He asked me if I’d sent in a feedback form. I told him I had, before I called; and I had little faith in getting a response to feedback forms— never mind any action taken on the troll problem.
Digital Guy then gamely listened to me describe the problem, but he made it clear that his hands were tied, that he couldn’t transfer me to the people who could actually do something about it, and that he couldn’t really do anything but guide me to the aforementioned feedback form.
In other words— he was not the right person.
You can never just do a job anymore in America. Before you can lift a finger, you must first be the right person.
Digital Guy said that the digital department was separate from subscriptions was separate from the web division and whatnot. Those departments don’t talk to each other, and no one in them strays outside their tiny niche of divided labor. (All in the interest of efficiency, of course.) And no, of course he couldn’t connect me with the webmaster.
He told me that PT would get back to me in about 72 hours. That was just about 60 hours ago.
I have a feeling I’ll be lucky to get a response in 72 days.
And if/when I do— it’ll probably be another poor cog with a sheepish voice, telling me they’re so sorry, they wish they could help me, but they’re just not the right person.
And in the meantime, the trolls will keep merrily on stinkin’ up the joint with their dung.
Very likely because they know the people in charge have their hands tied, and can/will never do anything about them.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
The second call ended a little happier, though it started out even more bewilderingly.
Where I live, we have a series of satellite emergency rooms/urgent care clinics, usually affiliated with one or more of our local hospitals. One of them was supposed to open one mile from my house in late 2016.
As a few people here might already know, I have a chronic pain problem that is utterly frightening. Because while, officially, it’s a bad case of IBS with gastric reflux, I often get symptoms that resemble women’s cardiac pain. (For a rundown of my experience, go here.) Since I’m a big girl, I’m naturally worried about my ticker; and therefore a pain episode can take, at minimum, a few hours out of my day and make me scared to be too far away from a medical facility. So, naturally, I was relieved to find they were putting one close to my house.
Only it never opened. They had one problem, then another. Calls to other Parent Hospital-affiliated satellite ERs in the area told me there was no ETA for opening. As of now, it’s 18 months and counting.
I have to drive 7.5 miles to the nearest ER in one direction, and 6 miles in the other direction. If I really were having a heart attack, I’d either be dead, or in perpetual hock to the ambulance companies.
So today I tried to call Parent Hospital again, as it was Friday and therefore I had a sense of time urgency.
First, I dialed the 800 number for Parent Company of Parent Hospital, which had been suggested to me by Parent Hospital a few months ago, and is located in a later time zone than mine. That number went to a single line with a simple voice mail. For a yuuuuuuuge company with controlling interest in multiple states, that’s awfully flimsy.
It’s hard not to see that voicemail box as a purposeful, “go away and fuck off”. Go away, you insignificant little pond insect, because the WEEKEND is coming up and we are switching our brains OFF.
Because they make it impossible for you, the caller, to do anything but that. Leave a message? Don’t make me laugh! That’s the designated circular file for disruptive little vacation-ruiners like you. You’ll be driving a car powered by cold fusion before hearing back from that little electronic Siberian outpost.
So, I then dialed the local number for Parent Hospital. And the main switchboard operator seemed a little… fuzzy as to the reason I was calling. She kept asking me what intersection I was talking about; and when I did, she said there was no ER there.
I told her, of course there isn’t. And there should have been 18 months ago.
So then, she suggested I call public relations, which I was skeptical of. And then— astoundingly— she suggested I call zoning for city and county. (!!)
Zoning. For a building already built, already designated for medical use, already (at one time) committed to Parent Hospital. Talk to zoning. As if they intend to convert the empty ER into a restaurant or something.
As politely as I could, I told her I was skeptical, and thought she was taking shots in the dark, but she insisted that public relations and zoning were The Right Persons™.
So I hung up, and consulted Miss Google. Public relations, just like the nice lady who didn’t know enough said.
It was now after 4 p.m., so I went straight to the mobile contact number. And— amazingly— I got a human being! And he answered my questions very well. He said that they were still planning to open it as a medical facility, but they were doubtful whether it should be an ER, a non-24-hour urgent care facility, or a primary care clinic— they needed to do some surveys based on the best needs of my neighborhood. I profusely thanked him, and he said someone from his office might call me next week.
They might not.
But I was so happy to talk to an actual human being and get an actual answer, I’m almost prepared to savor those crumbs.
I shouldn’t. And I won’t. I will see it through. To get as close to an actual time frame as I can, and not settle for crumbs. I’ll give PR Man the time frame he’s suggesting (probably till after the holiday) and then, if there’s no response, I’ll try them again.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
It took me just under 30 minutes to make the first call. Between 20 and 25 minutes for the combined second calls.
And quite a bit of stress for both. People who keep passing me along like a joint in a vain attempt to find The Magical Right Person™ stress me out. People who don’t know anything stress me out. People who never venture outside their tiny little niches stress me out.
Most people don’t have that kind of time, or that inclination to make themselves unnecessarily uncomfortable. Most people, quite understandably, give up. They walk away with their tails between their legs, defeated by the algorithm and the voicemail and the division of labor, before they can get even a smidgen of satisfaction.
Sometimes, I’m one of those people too.
And you get the distinct feeling that the companies you’re trying to contact want you to give up. They want you to be overwhelmed by the incredible effort it takes to get an answer, talk to an actual human being, find the The Mystical Magical Right Unicorn Person™. They want you to shut up, settle for what the algorithm gives you, and eat your crumbs.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Most Americans feel outright helpless, and my stories of two phone calls, I believe, illustrate why.
Anything that’s algorithm-controlled is engineered to take your input and agency out of the equation. To insulate the company from human judgment, because that would take too big a bite out of their profits. To make it impossible for you, the average person, to have any effect on the companies, the products, the people you come into contact with.
Often, the algorithm doesn’t see fit to inform you at all. You apply for the job, you contact the friend, you pitch your story idea. And… nothing. Ghosted. You have already been judged, and found lacking, instantaneously and with the click of a mouse.
At work, you are given an extremely narrow range of duties to perform. And an extremely narrow set of capabilities. If some customer asks you a question outside your scope? You’re not really allowed to say that’s not your job anymore, so you substitute the infinitely more polite “I’m not the right person”. You stay in your scope, your box, your niche. And your company stays happy. Another pesky scope-crosser stymied! Yay!
And sometimes you can speak to a manager… but what if they say they're not the right person either? What if this right person doesn’t exist? What if this “right person” stuff is a ruse to get you to go away?
What if the only way you can speak to someone at all, if is you pay them a fee first? (I’m looking at you, Canadian immigration lawyers! All I want is some advice on how to move to Canada if necessary, how to get a teaching certificate and a teaching job up there, etc. and all you can do is see this as yet another opportunity to monetize. And, of course tell me you’re not The Right Person™ and give me woefully inadequate answers.)
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Customer service sucks, all over… and that’s by design. To keep you people churning and burning, because volume drives profit. Because the person trying to help you has been given an insane quota to fill, imposed by some myopic executive who has NO idea of the rank-and-file’s experience, and very likely is working off a sales figures algorithm that promises easy-breezy profits; all your workers have to do is process 60 claims a minute or clean 20 homes a day.
Because they've been given sales goals that logically end up in “get blood from stones” and “force customers to buy your product”. By deception, if necessary.
Because for all intents and purposes, your “knowledge workers” are working in people-processing Foxconn factories. Volume is profit, and actually caring about quality and your customers can get you fired.
The runaround you get from trying to break through the hard shell of the voicemail, email and algorithm starts to look like an emergency switch in this scenario. A way to desperately afford these workers some self-care, a limit on their duties in this people-processing factory. A much-needed off switch.
A stopgap, in other words, that doesn’t do a damn thing to address the underlying issue of terrible workplace environments and terrible cultural ideals that turn us into terrible people. Just so we can survive.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
We don’t want to confront our bosses— they’re as helpless as we are in all this. Even CEOs insist they don’t have full agency; the board of directors and the market are in charge of them. A never-ending circle of “I can’t do anything about it; my hands are tied.”
And anyone who tries to break out of this cycle of learned helplessness is “being disruptive”. Is a “malcontent”. Is a “socialist fuckstick”. Is harshing everybody’s vibe and ruining everybody’s weekend. Just leave the nice niche-dweller alone and let them do their narrow niche job!
But, really, what vibe is there to harsh?!
People ask why Americans are so unhappy.
I ask: how can they be anything BUT unhappy?