08:29 Okay so that title's a bit optimistic, considering it's a whole new experience that i'm not particularly looking forward to, no. Today is the day.
I'm sat here waiting for my mum/lift to finish her social visit to her old workplace, it's looking like its going to be a nice day, but I'm kinda worried that I'm not going to have the ability/opportunity to enjoy it. I've finally got to go into the dental hospital in about 90 minutes, to have the remainder of that troublesome tooth removed, and based on past experience, I'll be happy when its over.
The sun's beaming in, too much in fact, the radio's on with some police bloke explaining how shootings in the city are up but we're still all safe because the police work really hard to protect us, the car's getting uncomfortably hot and i'm trying to get this down while struggling to concentrate against the radio and the screaming schoolkids walking past, and the cars rumbling past etc, admittedly there's not really a lot to say at the moment. I've taken the usual anti-dentist precautions, my chain, my watch etc (read my older blogs if you don't know what I'm on about hehe), but I'm still not relishing the idea of coming out of the hospital all woozy and disoriented and high and stoned.
So what have I got planned for the rest of the day? Nothing much, go to hospital, get operated on, get injected with lots of drugs and stuff and then go home and sort of pass out in my bedroom, possibly on the floor. While I've still got my faculties though, I'd like to talk about something else that's kinda caught my eye.
I've noticed that any interaction between a human customer/client/self important twit and a company/provider/whatever, has turned from a simple "i want xyz product please" "that'll be xyz price, thanks". to a ridulously "customer service" based saga of "customer satisfaction" calls, buzzwords, artificial professionalism, simpering and patronising letters that don't really do much except annoy the customer, and offer them opportunities to contact the company by phoning other people who are paid - as much as they hate having to do it - to be patronising and positively dribbling with artificial enthusiasm, and I, if no one else, am sick of it.
I'm sick of "experience enrichment" and "customer satisfaction" and "service questionnaires", nuisance phone calls by my finance company every 2 months to ask me if i'm still okay because I haven't missed any payments yet.
From the other side, I'm sick of asking callers if we're allowed to ask them if they enjoyed dealing with us, despite the fact that we don't provide a service to those people. I'm sick, in short, of this "the customer is always right" crap.
And so I am proposing a new web campaign that I shall probably get someone else to consider and then forget as soon as I realise I have better things to do:
http://www.iamnotacustomeriamahumanbeing.org
Okay so the URL is a bit on the long side, but by itself it kinda explains where I stand on the issue.
Most importantly though what I want is to be treated like a person and not some kind of omniscient demigod by the poor guy in the shirt and tie who is paid to fall over himself everytime some idiot walks within a couple of aisles of him. For me, just because I'm in his store, just based on the possibility that I might buy something, that poor kid is handed targets and given training classes and taught how to behave to "maximise satisfaction". He expresses concern that this behaviour is unnatural and abnormal, "no, it's customer satisfaction" leer his bosses.
So in the name of "customer service", in the name of someone i've never met or spoken to going out of his way to check that he's met all his vigorously enforced targets at my - and his - expense, every single time I go to any shop, I've got to deal with some poor kid who's being turned into a customer service zombie, against his will, his head filled with buzzwords and Key Performance Indicators, and if i complain then a different set of protocols kick in and this poor kid and I again have to go through the same macabre ridiculous dance - if I'm reasonable, he suddenly goes into customer service overdrive "oh my god how cruel of us to expect you to pay, how can we apologise to you?". If I'm unreasonable, he goes into suicidal mode, against all common sense, against all expectations of what would constitute "normal behaviour" he starts "Objection handling".
Objection Handling, to give it two capital letters it really doesn't deserve, is management's way of pissing off the troublesome customers while simultaneously keeping them away from the people that actually make the rules, by handling such duties to the younger more inexperienced members of staff - kind of like throwing a person in front of a lion to make sure you get away unmolested. If the younguns don't like this? Tough, you're management, you pay them, they're under your heel and you can crush them with all manner of "factfinding meetings" if they object to being abused for a living.
09:05 Well, my mum's back now, so we're one step closer to going into the torture chamber.
Still, hopefully these drugs will be nice and I won't feel a thing, but I doubt it. I have to admit, writing a blog on the move is a novel experience, even if due to Sheffield's famous pothole system, i'm struggling to get everything down properly. Oh well, my typing's probably still better now than i will be after I get out after being pumped full of stuff, (bloody hell there are so many speed humps about here!!!) so I might as well get as much down as possible.
Returning back to this horrible customer service debacle though, I can't help but feel that the notion of being seen to do your job properly, of making sure your customer is happy, has become an end to itself that in some cases actually takes precedence over actually doing your job properly. The best kind of professionalism comes from having confidence in your ability to do the job properly. The worst kind is completely unconnected with ability at best, and at worst is detrimental to the same. I don't want some company's customer service policy force, say, the camera store's sales guys to be so far up my arse that they can't get on with selling cameras to other people.
Well, I spose I'll piece this together later because I'm not really making sense.
09:14 and we're at the computer store, gonna hover round there for a while until the time comes to go to the hospital. Later.
09:31 Well, now we're scouting round for a parking place. Predictably, there's nowhere to park so around we go, again and again. I have to admit, while "scared" is the wrong word, I am now getting distinctly nervous about the whole thing, and despite assurances that I'll be too busy being drugged up to be in any kind of distress, I'm not looking forward to this at all. And I'm pretty hungry too. MAybe I can get something to munch after I come out, depending on the procedure. Besides the literature about being sedated says "do not make any important decisions". How then, can I decide what KFC I want? ;)
Well, it looks like we've found somewhere to park, nothing to do but wait and worry I spose. And wait while we keep going forwards, backwards, forwards, backwards, trying to crab our way sideways into this teeny tiny parking place. We've been at it about five minutes now.
09:38, well, time to get out and go into the hospital. I would say "wish me luck" but by the time you read this i'll have finished it off. So I'll wish me luck instead. Good luck, me :).
I'll be a happier person when I get back to you, though probably somewhat stoned too :p.
11:33 I'm somewhat stoned. Not a huge amount, I still know right from wrong, I still prefer KFC to McDonalds, but, as I was advised I would, I am slurring my words, pausing halfway through my sentences when I forget what I'm talking about. My coordination is a little impared, so I'm tripping over the odd thing, ya know.
So I got into the hospital, up to where we were, and to give the place the kudos it deserves, the crappy waiting area is gone, replaced with a two room gleaming shiny waiting area, still troublingly filled with that... clinical smell that afflicts all medical practices and hospitals I sat down and watched the occasional person walk past with the same tight "i am not worried" expression on their face. I was quickly called in and asked how I felt, which i answered: "Halfway between nervous and scared".
I sat down, answered a few questionsm signed a form saying "I agree etc etc" and it started. I had a blood pressure check,
Then out came a needle "you may feel a little scratch, like a cat scratch". It went in, and then it went in some more. "Yes,
I can feel that cat scratching right there" I said as the anesthetist kaughed.Ultimately though, it was only a few seconds before i felt my mind closing in. Not a loss of concentration as such but the thoughts themselves seemed "heavier", sluggish, like it was hard to hold a thought into my head long enough to articulate it. And though it may come as a disapointment for those of you who like all the gory details, I don't actually remember much of the operation. Thanks to the sedative, I hardly remember a thing - it's like being half asleep you don't really realise what's going on, which is cool :).
11:49, now I'm at the co op so it's time to get out and spend money on scrumptious yummy thingies.
And that's all that happened today. Now I have a mouthful of medical thread, I've already had the residual bleeding and the substantial soreness, but other than that I've spent most of today relaxing, watching wimbledon, eating ice cream etc, it's
been a nice chilled out afternoon. And now I've finally got this sorted, I'm off to bed :).
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