The Culture of Fear...

...that we're currently living in is nowhere more evident, I feel, than in the telephone customer service from major banks.

Those people, in India or Omaha or whathaveyou, are so afraid of saying the wrong thing that they can't do ANYTHING. They recite nonsense dutifully off the script, do not listen to anything you have to say, and are always weirdly tense, probably because the conversation is being recorded to insure that they can be fired at any moment. Yesterday one of them asked me how the weather was, in California. I wanted to say:

"The WEATHER? The weather is freaking awesome in California, even when it's cold it's AWESOME. Could you please attend to my problem and not a) give me the wrong information b) connect me to someone else with the wrong information or c) attempt to connect me to someone else that ends with my line going completely dead so I have no option but to start this whole futile process again for the fifth time??!!??"

...but I didn't. Why? Because at heart, I'm a capitalist pig.

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