2/ several times recently I have talked to customer support at some organization. The conversation goes something like this: me: I was told X by someone there, but Y happened them: I didn't tell you X, so I don't know me: I understand you didn't. But person A did.
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3/ them: I don't know what A said. It's not in the records here. me: I understand. But I'm telling you that A told me this, and your firm didn't do it. So now I need you to do it. them: well, I'm just working off of the records. I didn't know this.
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4/ me: I understand. I'm not saying that it's your fault. I'm just saying that person A - who is also a representative of your firm - said this, and so now I need you to solve this problem. them: it's not my fault what A said. I agree. It's NOT your fault. >>>
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5/ >>> It's your firm's fault. So I'm not blaming you personally. But I am saying that your firm needs to fix this. them: Yeah, I don't know why A said that. me: me either. And yet here we are. So your firm has to fix this. Because A spoke with the firm's authority <repeat>
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6/ I'm not exaggerating. If anything, I'm cutting this conversation short in the retelling. What is my point in all of this? It's that I think that millennials are missing a bit of the social API that my generation takes for granted. >>>
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7/ No, I'm not going with that tired old trope that they're whiny and lazy. I'm saying something different. I think millenials, by and large, haven't internalized that while on the job, they represent an EMPLOYER. This is actually a subtle point.
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8/ Part of this is, yes, being willing to eat some crap on your employer's behalf, so it ties into shame culture vs honor culture, but that's not my primary point. My point is specifically that they often tend to offer PERSONAL excuses to get out of PERSONAL responsibility.
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9/ This is a defective reaction to a stimulus....but it's also misunderstanding the stimulus! When I was a teen and I worked in a bookstore, if someone came in and said "hey, I was overcharged for this book", I understood that they were not attacking me.
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10/ They were not saying "Travis, you worked behind the counter at this firm, therefore I think you suck and did this to me". And because they were not saying that, I did not need to say "no, Bob did this".
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11/ What they were actually saying is "the collective enterprise known as Waldenbooks made a mistake", and because I understood that, and understood that no criticism was aimed at me, I could respond >>>
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12/ "the collective enterprise known as Waldenbooks apologizes for that mistake, and the collective enterprise will endeavor to fix this...IMMEDIATELY."
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13/ Now, here's an interesting thing: no one ever told me how to do this, or that I should do this - it was just "in the water". ...and I think that our cultural norms have drifted a fair bit over the last 30 years.
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14/ I think the norms were particularly strong in the wake of the "big blue" world of WWII, where everyone was in uniform, working two shifts at the munitions plant, or whatever. Likely stronger in 1950 than in 1930, at a guess. This sort of culture is downstream of >
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15/ USMC basic training, railroads that run on time, textile plants with 15,000 workers, coal mines, etc.
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16/ Why has this culture weakened? I don't know if it's downstream of the boomer "me" generation, increased influence of "don't disrespect me" African American culture, generalized norms of hoodie-wearing non-conformist rebels, something else ... or all of the above.
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17/ I am sad to see this norm start to rot. Voluntarily joining an organization and being able to subsume - for 8 hours per day - one's own preferences into the preferences of the group is a key tool to make free markets work. I see this as related - in effect, if not in cause
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18/ to the decline in trust in our society. I have two hopes: 1) this reverses (unlikely, IMO) 2) my slightly-reddish gray culture forks from the pink overculture and the Neo-Vickies get back to the Old Trad Ways
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24/ I remember once, circa 2000, I was doing a mortgage refi, and the bank screwed up and let my rate expired. I demanded the original rate. Front line support tried to attrit me away by talking. I stayed on the phone for 90 minutes before they folded.https://twitter.com/serbantanasa/status/1430152816136491014 …
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25/ yep; agreed one of the first things they told us in AFROTC was that "uniform" meant "one shape", because while in uniform we were all representatives of the same organizationhttps://twitter.com/TheLumpenprole/status/1430153149411627008 …
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