There are a select few things that really upset me. They are:
- Being ignored.
- Having my hair pulled.
- Someone eating all my food (or being unable to find food I can safely eat).
As a parent, I find that most of these happen, especially during the infant months, almost daily. I am willing to tolerate this because it’s part of having a kid. But when it happens outside of that realm, that’s where I’m not willing to let it go.
The lack of listening that’s an intrinsic part of being asked to “reboot the modem” again hits one of these pain points.
I am particularly irked by systems humans have set up that intentionally ignore the needs of the humans they are there to serve. These systems generally do a bad job at what they are there to accomplish. While I’m sure there’s a standard technical description, I call these, “Dehumanizing Systems.” And they drive me crazy.
Take for example a pregnancy blood test at a lab that requires you to register for an appointment online. When you show up, there’s no receptionist, just a tablet where you can sign in. You sign in but then wait an hour, and never see a person. Is anyone there? Did they forget to check the waiting room? Are they busy? There is no way to tell. The tablet becomes a barrier rather than a solution. You have become a part of a Dehumanizing System… and it could make you wait indefinitely.
More recently, I experienced something similar both with a cable company and with a therapist. I call them “Don’t ask me to reboot my modem” scenarios. They represent dehumanizing systems to the nth degree.
My internet service was going on and off, making remote work nearly impossible. I looked outside to see a broken tree branch on the cable line. Aha! This should be simple. I just need a tech to go up in the bucket truck and fix the damage from the branch. Right?
I called the cable company. I could not figure out how to speak with a human. Instead, I was stuck in a fully automated, talk to the computer, Dehumanizing System. It rebooted my modem five times in a row, each time lasting 20-30 minutes, while also logging me off the call and insisting I call back later.
I tried yelling “Customer Service”, “Agent”, and “Technician.”
Finally, after two hours, I got through to a human… who rebooted my modem and dumped me from the call. I called back, had to reboot again, and finally got to speak with another human later that evening, who booked a service tech. “This is an outdoor technician, with a truck, right?” I asked 3 times. “Of course,” he said.
A week later a technician showed up to do indoor service. That was clearly not what I asked for.
I told him he was there to look at the branch. He had to schedule a bucket truck guy. (Thankfully, our local techs are nice, knowledgeable humans, who have been allowed the right to call the other local human technicians). The bucket truck team came out later that day and did repairs throughout the neighborhood. Apparently, the cause of the outage was a branch on the line plus an extensive series of holes on the lines caused by squirrels chewing on them (which lets water in and causes corrosion). They patched the lines and everything worked again. I pay over $100/month for service, and this is considered a normal “good” customer experience.
Recently, I tried finding a therapist to treat my insomnia. I had a fantastic Cognitive Behavioral Therapist where I used to live, and have lots of experience with what works and what doesn’t work for me. I was ready to share details with the new therapist so we could build off of where I was. After an awkward start, the new therapist insisted that I just needed to do deep breathing to resolve my insomnia.
I explained what had worked for me in the past, like working through issues that might keep me up at night before I went to bed. Deep breathing was not something I found helpful. This isn’t to say that it won’t work for someone else, but just not for me. She insisted that I take a week and try it. I came back the next week and assured her that it did not help, and just delayed what I was supposed to be doing, which was getting out of bed when you can’t sleep, so you don’t associate your bed with wakefulness. She became frustrated with me and insisted I was doing it wrong.
I was deep breathing wrong.
Breathing. Wrong.
And all I could think of was, “Please, don’t ask me to reboot the modem again.”
What are the main problems with the Dehumanizing Systems in these scenarios?
- The human (client) is treated as if they are not knowledgeable (as if they have no value to add to the conversation).
- No listening occurs.
- The system disempowers, and as a result, frustrates the human who is seeking help.
And yet, we seem ok with this. Or maybe we feel that no one is there to truly listen and fix our problems due to these Dehumanizing Systems?
As frustrating as these systems are for all of us seeking help, they are also terribly annoying for the service technicians.
Imagine doing blood draws in an empty office following the direction of a computer. Perhaps you’re driving for a food delivery service or ride-share that tracks how fast you work to determine your pay. Or you are a cashier at a grocery store, becoming a machine that moves food from a conveyor belt to a scanner (essentially a pick-and-place machine) all day long.
These Dehumanizing Systems treat humans as part of a machine, only there to serve a single function. They do not listen, improve, or create a healthy or meaningful work environment.
Imagine that instead of dehumanizing systems, we designed systems with humans at the center. Systems where people are treated with respect as if they had knowledge to share. What if these systems listened to feedback from their users, and created improvements for both the customer and the staff?
Until then, don’t forget to get the direct phone number of your local cable technician and, if that fails, search online until you find a way to connect with a human instead of a machine.
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