Variant after variant of the coronavirus came and went, and telemarketers kept making us offers we could refuse even if they had been made by Don Corleone.
While the meat-packing industry suffered, the disservice sector showed greater resistance to the virus than the Pfizer, Moderna, Astro-Zeneca or Johnson & Johnson shots combined – with whatever boosters are coming.
To their great credit, disservice industry leaders broke new ground in the field of equal opportunity employment, hiring people not only without regard for the race, color, creed or national origin, but without regard to their ability to speak the language in which they would make their calls.
Bravo for your support of people for whom English is a Second Language.
I’d also like to thank the industry for making a special effort in trying to reach out to – and into the pockets of – seniors who are isolated and vulnerable. I, personally, appreciated – and continue to appreciate -- the opportunity you have offered me to stimulate the economy by giving my money to you at a time when the economy has needed a boost.
I’d also like to recognize not only my fellow seniors but anyone who, during this time, has managed to stay true to their lifetime habit of courtesy on the phone. At no time in history have so many remained so committed to such an elevated standard of behavior for so little reason.
Knowing it wasn’t really Social Security calling; knowing that you no longer own a car whose extended warrant may have expired; knowing the caller ID number shown had been generated by ping pong balls sucked out of a lottery machine; knowing the unlikelihood that any money you might donate would benefit the charitable cause mentioned, you merely said “No, thank you,” and disconnected.
I might add that, in a time when our privacy has largely been sacrificed so personal data can be used to advance economic interests, my belief is whatever words you uttered after hanging up the phone remain strictly a private matter.
I’m excited to bring you more good news.
It’s my belief that trends set by the disservice economy may be going mainstream, something I discovered not long ago in the privacy of my own home.
It happened at lunchtime when I pulled a package of frozen fake chicken patties out of the freezer compartment. Fishing two out, I got a funny feeling.
After a couple of Maricopa County recounts, I confirmed that I was one fake chicken patty short of a load. I’d paid for a package of four, and the recounts confirmed there were three.
So far, no problem.
Because when I located the customer service 800 number on the package, I was actually looking forward to the conversation.
The script was written in my head.
I would warmly thank the pleasant person on the other end for so readily offering me a coupon so I could claim my lost fake patty. I would then let the customer service rep know the only reason I hadn’t made the same kind of mistake is I had never had the chance to do it. I then would pass along my best and warmest wishes to their family.
But what ran into was a stone wall of telephonic informercials about products I had no interest in.
There, waiting for me on the customer complaint line was a series of pre-recorded junk calls of the sort described above.
The first recording started with a voice saying the word “emergency” in a dire tone.
It then offered me no opportunity to say I had not fallen; I was quite capable of getting up; and that all I wanted was my fake chicken patty.
I punched out of that recording to be greeted by recorded message two, offering me something like free road service and discounted oil changes for a year.
This confused me because I didn’t think my fake chicken patty would even cross the road, much less drive on it. And a check confirmed the package mentioned nothing about an oil change being required during the life of the product.
Plus, had I wanted service of that sort, I would have agreed to extend my car’s expiring warranty back when Don Corleone offered it to me.
Somewhere in all of this, came the suggestion that I should be prepared to provide photographic evidence of the problem.
That immediately led to two more problems.
One: As smart as it is, my smartphone can’t take a picture of something that’s missing.
Two: If I were to take a picture of an opened package with three fake chicken patties in it, the same photo might be used to make a case that, after breaking into the package, I had eaten a patty and was now trying to defraud the company of the purportedly missing patty.
And that could turn into a game of, in this case, fake chicken.
For a while, the whole customer service experience was the equivalent of having to answering three or four consecutive junk calls of the kind I try to avoid when all I wanted was this: To get the fake chicken patty that should have been there in the first place and for some human being to express minimal regret about its absence.
Then I realized I was reacting like a hostile elder in an elder-hostel.
I realized that, to go on with a healthy attitude, I have to embrace the realities of a changing world.
So, I immediately turned that frown upside-down and began celebrating the new and exciting field of customer disservice.