Customer Service

I have traveled and explored thirty countries, spanning all continents bar South America and the Poles, and never I have I met such rude and unaware people as I have met in the United States of America, so stuffed are they of their own ignorance and arrogance as to be shameful.

I am talking here specifically in relation to the horrors of customer service. Customers complain about the lack of it and servers dread the next onslaught of dehumanization, and thus the vicious cycle of mutual resentment perpetually rolls on ad infinitum.

To be a server, and that is what I am—to be in servitude—is to be submissive, to be lower than you. I suppress and repress all the feelings I have through countless hours, days, weeks, months and years, to provide you with satisfaction and my superiors (no, not you) with the fruits of my labor. All the while I die a little more, my dreams wilting before me as I ask whether you would like a bag with that.

Everything is enslaved to profit, not for evil reasons, nor even conscious ones; the economic system that is spreading throughout the world has unconsciously evolved that way. There is no grand design for domination, no evil minions plotting for global domination (which will disappoint X-File fans and many other paranoid, fanciful minds—maybe I am one of them?). The rules of the game—to compete, to grow through investing profits to make more profits, to beat and assimilate your competitor—were written in the mythic past where only academics attempt to weave their own histories in accordance with their beliefs.

What is real is how all that affects us now. I belong to one company or another, and sell my labor for a wage whilst watching those above me grow fatter and more fulfilled (assuming they don’t go bust). I am their servant first, then I am yours, as I bring in the honey, like any good worker bee. The hierarchy is set: I serve you, to serve my employer, who plays the unconscious game we are all sucked into.

There is, however, a different idea—in fact, many different ideas—about how we, the collective we, could structure things differently, as increasingly conscious and aware individuals. The key concept here is "participation." This is a universal desire amongst all of us who are ground down with frustration by the alienation and disassociation of our lives. We attempt to numb our pain through the countless forms of social anesthesia, and to keep our mouths from filling with water as we tread bills, children, health care expenses, mortgage repayments, consumer debt, etc. We want to have more say in our lives, and we want to have someone listen to us—listen!

I am one of those people. I am frustrated, I numb my senses, I swallow what seems to be an ocean at times. I crave more and different. I wish that when I served you—no, not served but helped you, participated with you in a common goal of mutual satisfaction—that you would understand that what is a brief encounter for you before you depart for another shore, is for me my harbor that sees many people just like you. For me an "Excuse me," a "Please," a "Thank you"—which you so encourage your children to say, and yet neglect yourself—is my sustenance. This is all I ask from you: awareness that you are participating in a relationship with another human being who—if the world were different, if dreams were made of something more substantial—would probably not have dreamt, "When I grow up I wish to be in customer service."

Let us attempt to serve each other, so that the customer serves the server who serves the customer, at least till the world becomes a different, more fulfilled place.