3 ms·

You used to be able to go into elevators and tell the attendant what floor you were going to, or have the ice delivery service figure out how much you needed fo

You used to be able to go into elevators and tell the attendant what floor you were going to, or have the ice delivery service figure out how much you needed for the next day as well. The current situation is a significant improvement, IMO.

ghaff 3y ago
Yeah, I don't really have problems interacting with most people. If I wanted a pizza right now I'd have no problem with calling my local pizza place and heading over there to pick it up. But at some point the idea that we should maintain low-paying, pretty boring (although there are lots of customer interactions) "bullshit" jobs so we can eschew automation pretty much falls apart. (And different businesses will draw different lines.)
- carapace 3y ago
  I'm in favor of letting the machines do the shit work to free us up to do things like parenting, gardening, local politics, etc. My point is that a corp or org that thinks of dealing with it's customers as a bullshit job is probably not one you want to patronize. If I were running a company the folks that talk directly to the customers would be pretty high status.
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    If you’re running a high gross margin business, that totally makes sense. That also leaves an opening for a competitor to come in and treat your high margin as their opportunity, maybe by going cheaper on CS. In a low gross margin business, I think the days of having excellent and high status customer service are already gone (and may have never been). To the operator example above, a 5 minute long-distance call in 1980 cost the equivalent of about $7.50 in today’s money. It’s probably not that hard to figure out the conclusion of squeezing those costs and margins out of telecom companies, but I also think we’ve all been made better off for it, except perhaps people whose dream it was to be a telephone operator for 45 years.
bombcar 3y ago
There are times when missing an attendant is felt; they could hold the elevator for you, see you running up, etc. Much of that still exists (most elevators have a "move in/move out" mode that is never turned on, for example) or can be obtained via the fire lockout key, but overall the service is a bit lower.

ghaff 3y ago

Yeah, I don't really have problems interacting with most people. If I wanted a pizza right now I'd have no problem with calling my local pizza place and heading over there to pick it up. But at some point the idea that we should maintain low-paying, pretty boring (although there are lots of customer interactions) "bullshit" jobs so we can eschew automation pretty much falls apart. (And different businesses will draw different lines.)

carapace 3y ago
I'm in favor of letting the machines do the shit work to free us up to do things like parenting, gardening, local politics, etc. My point is that a corp or org that thinks of dealing with it's customers as a bullshit job is probably not one you want to patronize. If I were running a company the folks that talk directly to the customers would be pretty high status.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  If you’re running a high gross margin business, that totally makes sense. That also leaves an opening for a competitor to come in and treat your high margin as their opportunity, maybe by going cheaper on CS. In a low gross margin business, I think the days of having excellent and high status customer service are already gone (and may have never been). To the operator example above, a 5 minute long-distance call in 1980 cost the equivalent of about $7.50 in today’s money. It’s probably not that hard to figure out the conclusion of squeezing those costs and margins out of telecom companies, but I also think we’ve all been made better off for it, except perhaps people whose dream it was to be a telephone operator for 45 years.

bombcar 3y ago

There are times when missing an attendant is felt; they could hold the elevator for you, see you running up, etc. Much of that still exists (most elevators have a "move in/move out" mode that is never turned on, for example) or can be obtained via the fire lockout key, but overall the service is a bit lower.