From the British comma commissioner, Lynne Truss (author of the hit grammar book Eats, Shoots & Leaves), comes a new diatribe, this time exloring the collapse of civil society. Her new book, Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door is excerpted in The Age.
It’s a bit of a wandering whine-fest, but speaks to the essential issue of human interaction, with particularly sharp barbs poking at modern customer-service practices. Does this extended excerpt describe your organization?
Manners are about imagination. They are about imagining being the other person. These systems force us to navigate ourselves into channels that are plainly for someone else’s convenience, not ours.
In the past, if you phoned a company to ask a question, you would tell an operator: ”I’m calling because you’ve sent my bill to the wrong address three times”, and the operator would attempt to put you through to the right person.
But in the age of the automated switchboard, there isn’t an operator any more. If we want something done, we must just get on and do it ourselves. ”Why am I the one doing this?” we ask ourselves, 20 times a day.
And it can only get worse. ”Why not try our self-check-in service?” they say, brightly. ”Have you considered online banking?” ”Ever fancied doing your own dental work?” “DIY funerals: the modern way.”
This ”do-it-yourself” tactic occurs so frequently, in all parts of life, that it has become unremarkable. In all our encounters with businesses and shops, we now half expect to be treated not as customers, but as system trainees who haven’t quite got the hang of it yet.
