Tag Archives: dehumanising processes

When a system is broken, nobody feels “heard” and this undermines something fundamental about the human condition, stealing away our sense of worth and liberty while seemingly forcing us into the kind of corners where we show our very worst aspects as some sort of “currency” to barter with. I have found myself hamming up my personal circumstances to all those call centres this week because, when cornered – hard – by a protocol that feel unrelenting obtuse and unlistening, we sometimes feel like there is nothing else we can do but spew our personal circumstances and lose our cool. We are often reduced to ranting toddlers by the time our solution is delivered after much banging of heads on a brick wall and so is it any wonder that the delivery or repair force is then accustomed to arriving at people’s homes to find customers poised like Rottweilers ready to pounce; no wonder they sometimes refuse to go the extra-yard. We have become entrenched in a mass stand-off, with the people who work at the front line of our services feeling abused and abusive because people behind the scenes get away with so very much. At its rotten root, it all comes from policy, not from the people manning the phones per se; though the fact they don’t have to look people in the eyes when they feed them the corporate line has made it oh-so easy for us to habituate this modern-day mode of behaviour and kid ourselves its is the acceptable norm to send out and receive. Our mores have become corporate and our evolution requires that we shed those standards and stand by our own once again; like we did when we were village shopkeepers and looked people straight in the eye…only on a far bigger scale. This is our next challenge and it is entirely achievable once we all remember how important it is to feel respected and heard ourselves (read more…). Continue reading →