Thought Crime

I used to think Americans' obsession with movie actors was a superficial thing. Now I'm not so sure. It seems more and more of us are demanded to be amateur thespians in our day-to-day low-paying dead-end jobs. In my job at the wiener factory here in Illinois (I was hoping to ditch the wiener factory once and for all when I left Hoosierville A, but the job market being what it is, I ended up transferring...), it seems as though I am somehow going above and beyond simply by being civil, competent and helpful. Now I'm being told that the first point is not enough and the last two don't matter. I must learn to act like every one's best friend. I must learn to act like I'm the pitch man in an infomercial. I must not use the same words or phrases twice with two different customers despite the fact that I have over one hundred interactions a day about the same three things. I must learn to be more casual in my speech, and the examples of how to do so that are given to me, I find impolite and unprofessional.

Simple politeness, competence and a willingness to help go a long way with my customers. I've been complimented so many times simply because the service at the wiener factory is so hideously sub par that it's like I'm doing a huge favor just by doing my job. I understand the need to get the rest of the employees to stop being dicks, but the way to do that is to stop tolerating bullshit, not by instituting lists of phrases to use and words to avoid. For example, I can't say the word "no," or any other "negative" word. That's great for a commercial or a piece of advertising, but all day long, I am supposed to ad-lib scripts in my head that would ordinarily take a troop of marketers, a gaggle of ad execs and a team of lawyers to write a 30-second spot for.

I haven't paid for my wiener deliveries in two months, can you guys just keep the wieners coming for a while longer?

"Nnnn....... uh, we can keep your wieners coming if you pay the outstanding wiener bill!"

That's not what I asked! Listen, you've stopped delivering my wieners today. How about I pay you next Friday and you keep those wiener deliveries coming?

"We canno... uh, we can resume delivery of your wieners if you make a payment right now!"

You are rude and unhelpful.

***

I'm currently experiencing the joy of training modules that are little more than an Orwellian attempt at thought control. Positive people are successful and they never use "negative" statements that involve words like "no" and "not." Negative people who do say things like, "no," "not," "can't," "shouldn't," "unethical" and "illegal," are psychopaths and should be treated like they have a contagious disease.

Since I'm just a cog in the wiener machine, I actually can't do a lot of things - like, for example, extend billing deadlines for customers, or force delivery trucks to go back the same day if the first delivery man threw the wiener delivery down a customer's septic tank. Instead of a simple, straightforward and, in my opinion - respectful and polite - statement saying I cannot do these things, instead I have to dance around the point with a statement of "I can..." do something else. To me, that seems not only rude, but also an insult to the receiving party's intelligence.

I have an appointment today and your wiener delivery driver says I wasn't here when he came by! I've been sitting in front of my house all damn day on a lawn chair drinking beer and pissing in a cup! He's the one who hasn't been here! Can you get someone out here soon, I've got a barbecue and no wieners!!!

"I can get a delivery driver out there next Thursday!"

That's bullshit! I was here! I've got the sheriff, a judge and the fucking mayor sitting here with me and they'll sign a sworn statement!

"These are not the droids you are looking for!"

***

It seems to me like the English language wasn't really meant to bend this way. The word "no" was specifically invented for one purpose, and it fulfills that purpose admirably. Replacing "no" with "I can" comes off as clumsy and long-winded at best, and downright belligerent at worst.

My guess is that this is coming down to us from on high, where middle managers and corporate executives get by every day by saying "yes," and by "playing ball" and "being a team player." It's an entire class of self-selected fakers who don't need to deal with the real world consequences of bad policies and how those policies effect the hundred or so customers I get stuck talking to on a day-to-day basis trying to justify the unjustifiable. Rationality goes out the window in favor of blind "positivity," and pretty soon you've got the same carbon copy personality types infecting the organization and spreading like a virus. They train their HR drones to only hire people who use "affirmative only" statements in the interview. Then they only promote people within the organization who never criticize the way things are currently being done and therefore, nothing is ever improved until the company literally loses millions of dollars over something stupid, and then they scramble to come up with a quick and easy band-aid that doesn't really solve anything.

I am really shocked at the way things go where I work. Our billing system is total garbage - the user interface is worthless. In Hoosierville A, when the pork plant turned into the wiener factory, they switched from one billing system to a second billing system. Now, here in Illinois it's yet another, third, billing system, and this one is the worst of all of them. I make suggestions, and my coworkers and supervisors go, "Is that even possible?"

YES!!!

Other billing systems can update a customer's current balance immediately after a change is made and not take 24 to 48 hours to show the change. They just don't here. And in other billing systems, you can take a payment and it will automatically be applied to that customer's account, you don't need to copy/paste their account number.* Just not here. And you can reverse payments and not tell customers they need to go contact their bank to dispute the payment. Just not here. And other billing systems have a customer's monthly rate, with promos and discounts already figured in, displayed prominently so you don't have to add it all up yourself on a calculator. Just not here. And in other billing systems, I can set up an automatic recurring monthly payment for a customer instead of telling them to do it themselves on the website. Just not here.

I can just imagine if someone like me were at a GM board meeting in the early 2000s.

Our business plan is to continue manufacturing more SUVs and Hummers like it's 19-fucking-99. We're going to eschew smaller cars and do nothing to increase research into fuel efficiency and hybrid technologies, but we'll have our PR people put together some shit that makes it look and sound like we're committing to those technologies even though nothing will ever come of it - at least not out of us!

"That seems like a bad idea in the long term. Research shows that fuel costs are going to increase and consumers are going to want smaller, more fuel efficient cars."

You're never going to get anywhere in this company with language like that, mister!!! Take your NEGATIVITY and go work for some FOREIGN car company, you piece of shit!!! USA!!! USA!!! USA!!!

Or how about AIG?

We are launching a new financial product called derivative assets. What we do is we take a shitload of crappy loans, divide them up, and package the pieces together. That way, even if one borrower defaults on their loan, the other loans are still getting paid.

"But if all the loans are risky, aren't they all at risk of defaulting? Packaging them together doesn't make them any less likely to fail. And you want to sell these to charities and non-profit groups? Is this even ethical?"

You are just not a TEAM PLAYER!!! I can tell by your word choice - and by the faggy foreign hybrid car that you drive - that you actually WANT this company to fail! Why don't you take your concern for long term profits and ethics and go work in academia or something!!!

***

For me, the issue is that there are *real* problems with this company in terms of how it does things. Part of my job requires me to say, "no," sometimes. People can make unreasonable requests about their meat. We honestly can't do certain things, regardless of whether we should be able to do them or not. And if the wiener factory wants me to be an actor 10 hours a day, the least they can do is provide me with a god damn script!

*Side note: This may seem nitpicky at first, but imagine if you called a company that you do business with every month, and you made a payment on your account, only on your next statement your payment was not reflected. You call in and it takes an additional 48 hours or more to straighten out. It all happened because the person you made the payment to pasted the account number of the person s/he was talking to before you in some field. Now repeat this a dozen or more times a day. Literally. Totally avoidable, yet it happens over and over again and probably costs the company millions of dollars a year in man hours spent tracking down these phantom payments and applying them to the correct accounts. Never mind the fact that it makes the company and its employees look totally incompetent, thus encouraging customers to purchase their pork products elsewhere.