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When I was in college, I worked at a bakery and actually made some long-term friends by talking to customers that came into the store. I later used this job exp
by keiferski 4mo ago
When I was in college, I worked at a bakery and actually made some long-term friends by talking to customers that came into the store. I later used this job experience to get an email support job, answering questions that users had about our software plugin. Never made any long-term friends with customers there, even if they emailed us once a month.
The difference is that email / online support has no “human downtime moments.” At the bakery, I usually would talk to people while we were waiting for their order to be finished heating up / cooking / etc. So there was a moment or two people standing around waiting, which naturally leads to a conversation. Or at least it did a decade ago when cellphones weren’t quite as omnipresent.
I wonder if having a monthly Zoom “open office hours” type thing would replicate some of this feeling in a software context. Probably not, but it might be better than just answering emails.
- hello15565 4mo agoThere's also the fact that, email / online support leave records. You really don't want to leave a written record of you asking someone about their life, as when/if it gets audited - you can possibly get into trouble.
- pjc50 4mo agoI think this is an uncharitable reading of GDPR that is probably not backed by actual decisions?
- kd5bjo 4mo agoWho said anything about GDPR? If someone reveals to you that they are in some kind of protected class, then there’s a risk that anything you do they don’t like could see you tagged for discrimination even if it’s how you’d treat any customer in the same situation.
- wizzwizz4 4mo agoIf you have evidence it's the usual approach (e.g. written policy documents, aggregate statistics), then it should be fine. If it's a situation that only comes up for certain demographics, and you handle it poorly such that members of those demographics consistently have a worse time than everyone else, then that might be a legitimate discrimination issue even if there's no malice intended.