“In God we trust.”
That has been the official motto of the United States since 1956.
Do we perhaps need a new motto, one which better describes the way we live today?
I propose: “To improve service, we will serve you less.”
I suggest this because the only constant I detect in our lives these days is that whatever we used to have, we won’t have it soon.
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Try, just try to get in-person service from a business, a utility, even the government. First you are shunted to the internet, which millions of Americans don’t have and can’t afford. Oh, you might finally talk to someone. But chances are you won’t be able to understand that someone and he or she can’t understand you.
And the sad thing is that like Pavlov’s dogs, we have been conditioned, in this case conditioned to no longer expect service to include human interaction.
And day by day, we are less and less served amid all the connectivity we supposedly have through a welter of electronic gizmos.
Just the other day, my bank closed the drive-thru facility I use every week because I no longer walk well and I don’t have a fancy, – and expensive – phone, to do online mobile banking. I imagine other people are similarly situated.
But tellers cost money. Yes, humans are quite the financial nuisance what with wanting to be paid, needing to eat, sometimes getting sick. Machines are certainly more cost-efficient.
More alleged service: How did you like the way Major League Baseball served up Cubs postseason play? I wouldn’t know. I didn’t see any of the games because I don’t have pay TV. A 2013 survey by GfK Media & Entertainment found that 19.3 percent of all homes with a TV (22 million) watch only free broadcast TV. More than 60 percent of those surveyed cited cost as the reason they didn’t have some form of pay TV.
So, millions of fans of the country’s National Pastime were just cast aside. Cubs fan? Tough. Listen to them on the radio.
Customer service? McDonald’s now offers breakfast all day. I love the Bacon Egg and Cheese Biscuits. Be nice to have one for lunch.
Oh, sorry, those are only available all day in the South.
To better serve me, no doubt.
Paul Sassone is a freelance columnist for Pioneer Press.