You ever read an article (or listen to one, in my case), and nod your head over and over again and laugh out loud? That’s what this article on Dropped Service Calls in the Atlantic by Chris Colin did for me.

I have been affected by sludge with so many companies, especially some of the companies. But other companies too. Sludge exists, we all feel it, and I freaking hate it. And I can see that Apple and Google are coming up with ways to deal with wait times, but now we’re just having computers talk to computers to do computer things because I just want a basic thing in real life.

I get why people want to run away to the mountains, because who the hell wants to be on a phone call for two hours? (I guess maybe it’s a good excuse to get my steps in.)

The premise of the article focuses on the author’s car, dealing with an inexplicable sudden brake failure system, an issue with his brand new Ford vehicle. He was trying to use the warranty and chased customer service for 108 days, being bounced from division to division with little luck, which is ridiculous. Until one day Ford mysteriously finally called him back and said, “Hey, we’re gonna buy it back.” And as the author took the money and ran, just to be sure that Ford wouldn’t sell a lemon to another customer, he put the VIN in the article itself. Hilarious!

And of course, Ford and others, the corporate people have their own corporate responses that they “love” the customer and they “don’t believe” in sludge and these experiences are very “bad”.

Ford is just a gigantic company that it’s easy to point your laser at. But what about all the medium businesses that also don’t pick up their phone calls and redirect everything and forget it? They don’t even have phone numbers anymore. They just have email and some stupid AI chatbots that can be tricked into giving you airline miles or whatever. Even in healthcare, it’s so frustrating (also mentioned in the article).

I definitely vibe more with the side of “F it, I don’t care,” and I just won’t interact or use your service. I call it “silent but deadly.”

I’ve worked in the restaurant industry and this phenomenon is a real one. It’s not actually about the reviews you get on Google Maps or Yelp. Rather, it’s the reviews you don’t get of the person that just did not like your food enough or didn’t like your service enough and will never come back again because you just didn’t address them, you didn’t take care of them, you didn’t care enough.

It sucks on the business side because you want to be able to serve them (if you care about the customer, that is). On the other hand, when you don’t care about the customer, then ultimately, you don’t care about the customer.

In other papercuts, companies get your email addresses wrong, and they get your phone number wrong, they get your name wrong, and the fake empathy, the fake feelings. I resonated with all of it. (seriously, read the article).

Sometimes I’ve had customer service reps yell at me if it’s not me chewing them out. You just want to push back and fight and just say, “Whoa, you’re not my problem. Escalate me.” My favorite word for talking to somebody on the phone is “escalate me to your supervisor.” or “I want a refund. Don’t want to talk to you anymore. Get me somebody else who can help.”

Unfortunately, in these situations is that the calls are recorded. And so everyone’s scrutinized. I don’t want them to get a ding on their social credit score for their job because I couldn’t get what I needed. Everyone is a loser in these stupid customer service situations.

I really don’t even know what the answer is. I just know that it sucks. And more people need to have empathy.

I think years ago I remember a website called Consumerist that used to do a really good job of highlighting the negativity of these companies. But these new orgs come and go because you feel like you’re fighting the man, but you just feel overwhelmed with all of them.

Customer service is truly just homogenous sludge.

And the same thing with online shopping, just generic brands on Amazon that you can generically call back and generically get conversations with.

In addition, that’s probably the reason why I like, and many other people like, the idea of an Amazon Prime subscription or that instant refund model. What’s the point of fixing something or trying to get it repaired through warranty if I’m going to just spend hours of my precious time doing it? I might as well just drop the product and resell it or hitch it on Marketplace to somebody else. At least it’s not my problem anymore. Yikes.

That individualism and selfishness and the lack of empathy (real human empathy, not that sugar coated stuff) and no empathy and human connection and the idea to commoditize every single relationship is really toxic, really sad, and frustrating. It really leaves you with a bitter feeling of deterrence and defeat.

Also, the lack of information when you want to just know what’s happening. Even my error messages nowadays have vagueness, whether it’s on my computer or my phone or some website.

Just the lack of description, the lack of detail, the lack of an error code that has some level of explanation.

I get it, not every single thing can be documented. There are unknown unknowns, but those are few and far between. Most things have a place of resolution.

Maybe the expectations need to be rebalanced with both ends. That corporations are fallible, and so are human beings. I just wish corporations would stop acting like they’re not fallible. They are, and they will fall. And we will laugh gleefully when they do because we’re kind of sick of their nonsense of taking our money for granted.

The EU is way ahead when it comes to consumer protections versus the US, which has the everlasting lobbies of corporations constantly creeping up in every single corner of politics and policy. Almost always against the consumer.

Weeding out that undue influence is critical to restoring that sanity that we all have, that we belong and that we matter.

I will say, one of the most beautiful DMV experiences I’ve ever had was in the south where I dealt with a DMV that processed my documents within 10 minutes every single time. I could count at least seven times that I’ve had to go, and each time I was addressed quickly. I didn’t have a long wait and my issue was taken care of all within 10 minutes. On days that had no lines, I could just walk in and walk out within about seven minutes. It kind of blew my mind that that’s even possible. Government that actually works and is efficient? Wild!

By the way, if you’re ever interested in a kick, go get your own Asterisk server. I’ve played with it before and done VOIP calls. It’s very easy to spin it up since it’s all open source software. But it’s fun to create your own dive and codes and numbers and feel like you’re some hacker guru that is phreaking in the 21st century.

I wonder if we’re going to create chatbots that fight chatbots and fight for us. The chaos. It’s possible. I’d like to keep my imagination open.

Also, I wonder if customer service, when I say that “I want a manager”, that they often bring their other colleague who says that they’re a manager, but they’re not actually the real manager. You know, they say that with AI, you have to say certain words in certain ways, engineer your contacts so clearly so that you can get the AI to actually tell you what to do.

I feel like I’m also engineering humans and my language in conversations with them in order to get them to give me what I want when it comes to customer service.

Definitely read the article, empathize with the call center folks, drink some tea afterwards to calm yourself down, and then remember no customer service is worth your life. Go touch some grass.