Looking at the other side

Sometimes the comments section is not large enough. So, this is a reply to this post and a follow-up comment for the exchange that happened on Remark.as:

I'll try to focus on the example of bad customer service on retail stores for a moment.

I think the argument is simple: a good customer service is costly. Business processes, tech infrastructure, well-paid and trained employees. All that cost MONEY.

If a company wants to continuously increase profits—and in a debt based economy, companies have to grow indefinitely—it needs to cut down costs at some point. Invariably, customer service worsens—an observable trend almost everywhere.

The business bears the responsibility for the quality of the service, not the employee in the front desk. If the company does not care about the customer, the under-paid, untrained and frustrated employee in front of you becomes also their complaints department.

Let's be realistic. Rude and apathetic employees in the store, abusive and aggressive customers, all that is okay as long as those are isolated cases. In any society, a certain degree of conflict is unavoidable, and I would even say, healthy. No need for policymakers to jump in to fix anything.

If there is a systemic problem—and the mere existence of a “zero tolerance” campaign suggests there is—that's a different story.

( I started this post trying to focus on the specifics, but it seems to me this is a broader problem. So, I move from the specifics to the general. Again. )

In a capitalist world, if a company treats you as crap, you go to the competitor. As simple as that. You refuse to give them your money, and they will improve or disappear. If you're dealing with a monopoly, that's a different scenario, which is out of the scope of this post. (Suffice to say, we're delusional if we believe monopolies are rare in our super-capitalist world.)

Systematic abuse and violence, wherever it happens, points to something wrong in the society at large.

(Side note: who determines what is considered violent and/or abusive is another point we often overlook. What you consider violent (specially when violence is not physical) might be acceptable for me and vice versa. This is particularly true across different cultures. On top of that, we live in a world where definitions are changed hastily. Yesterday you were a citizen participating in a protest, today you are a domestic terrorist).

A genuine abuser will be abusive in different contexts, with their children, partner, colleagues, etc. not only with retail associates. Even if these conflicts are more frequent in businesses located in specific neighbourhoods where minorities live, it tells you something about society as a whole.

In my opinion, this behaviour suggests underlying and deep societal issues. The superficial symptoms might be a generalized lack of empathy, tolerance, and understanding. Pretending the root cause will be fixed by putting in place a “zero-tolerance” policy seems naive to me. It is like if you received frequent calls from your boy's school to tell you he's involved in fights with others, and you try to fix the issue by beating the shit out of him each time. That only make things way worse in the long term.

In a healthy society, abusers and aggressive people will always be there, but they would be few. People who can't stand up for themselves would be an anomaly too. Most individuals would be capable of respectfully discussing disagreements and talk things through in a civilized manner. Free speech and passionate but respectful debate would be the norm.

In this perfect society, if an abuse incident occurs between people falling in the above-mentioned minority groups, those around won't be bystanders. They won't tolerate the abusive behaviour. Period. And when I say “those around” I mean normal citizens, no institutions, or the State, or “rule-enforcers”.

And in those extreme cases where the situation gets out of control (let's say the violent person has a gun, the situation escalates, and he kills somebody). Then, you'll have a functioning judiciary system that applies the law. The punishment would be proportionate to the damage being done, no matter how much money you have in your bank account or the colour of your skin.

But we don't live in that utopian society.

Unfortunately, the punishment for anti-social behaviour—or a crime—is not proportionate to the damage done. The money you can afford to spend on the legal defence is more relevant. Even if you are broke, but your problematic behaviour aligns to the imposed ideology, then you'll get away with minor incidents without consequences. Particularly in the first world, citizens taxes go to maintain a costly bureaucratic apparatus with politicians, experts, and advisors who create useless policies and apply the law to respond to other interests than the well-being of society.

I hear about “zero-tolerance” policies everywhere, in different countries and contexts. And in most of those places, these policies made no difference on the problem they pretend to fix, often times make things even worse in the long term.

(Maybe this post could be written in a more concise and eloquent way. To sum it up in one line: I'm tired of policymakers pretending they care.)

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