Dave | unobtrusive lucidity

How Can I Assist You?

Remember the scene at the end of Vanilla Sky? The one where Tom Cruise’s character is running down the hallway screaming “Tech Support!!!” I really liked that scene. It was one of those literal “laugh out loud” moments in the theatre.

The irony is that, were I experiencing an existential crisis in which the technology and psychopharmacology used to re-structure my life were malfunctioning, I can’t imagine actually having to contact “tech support.” Because, based on most experiences, I think I would be screwed.

Take, for example, a recent support request that I filed with my ISP. I was requesting a simple change in options. As a result, they disconnected my service entirely. A day later it was back on, but only after three stressful phone calls. Then I receive an email link asking me to verify my primary email address. The link didn’t work. So I receive a nasty-gram saying I still need to verify. I try again. The link doesn’t work. Rinse and repeat. I email tech support. My response was a lengthy form-letter email explaining why they need to my verify email address, without taking any steps to solve the issue that I can’t.

An absolute vacuum in which intelligence cannot exist.

Now, not all tech support is created equal. Take Apple, for instance. Not only do their Genius Bar techs know exactly what to do with my devices, they’ve actually known more about other manufacturer’s devices in the past than the other manufacturer’s tech support. If only every experience could be like that.

Alas, however, when we call tech support…or customer service of any variety…we generally receive a reply that is obviously automatically generated (no, automated email, I don’t believe you were really written by “Kerri”). When we call, and speak to a living person, they are almost always not permitted to think for themselves, but must follow a rigid script that always begins by telling me how they would be happy to assist me.

And, actually, I know you’re not happy to assist me! I know you’re just doing your job. And I’m okay with that. So just do that job, and speak to me like I’m a person, without doing me the insult of reading to me off of a glorified teleprompter. I don’t need an emotional warm-fuzzy to be a satisfied customer…I just need you to support your product (And, no, I don’t believe your name is Roger, what with your accent and all).

Why is it that corporations force those who are assisting us by phone or email to not think for themselves? How can they not realize that having someone read a script to make them sound genuine and polite is actually the antithesis of permitting them to sound genuine and polite? Why are they so afraid to tolerate individual personalities? Has the industrial age so elevated the status of automaton that individuality and humanity can’t be tolerated?

I wish we were in a post-industrial age, but we’re obviously not, because corporate culture will not tolerate creativity, at least not in my experience. And when creativity is encouraged, it is strictly controlled, and thus, by definition, not true creativity. I hope we move toward the post-industrial at some point in the near future. And, I think I know when I’ll be able to tell that we are. I think it will be when every experience of customer service is like the one I experienced Monday evening at a locally-owned small business: matter-of-fact, but genuinely polite and outside-the-box, while also quick and efficient.

When someone isn’t forced to say, “My name is ______ and I’d be happy to assist you with that today, Mr. Brown.” Or forced to try to sell me something else at the end of a transaction.

If employers don’t permit employees to think for themselves, to learn and grow from mistakes, and think outside of the box, then we may just experience a generation incapable of assuming leadership professionally because they have never developed critical thinking skills. Especially because those skills aren’t taught in our public schools anyway.

And who knows what we’ll be met with when we’re running down the corridor of life screaming for tech support?

A scary thought, indeed.

Photo Attribution: upyernoz

Weekend Lights

The thought occurred to me at some point during the week that I really should be considering Christmas decorations soon. I suppose it came up because I started seeing trees and stockings up around the workplace of the day job, and I started thinking about where the tree and so forth is in our storage closet. With adding our daughter to the family and recovering from Thanksgiving travels (I was oddly jet-lagged this year), I simply haven’t devoted much consideration to the fact that the Christmas holiday is really only days away.

Now begins the series of loose traditions that we tend to keep this time of year: watching a few movies, listening to Christmas jazz and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, planning family visits, and so forth. I’ve decided to put up lights and our tree tonight, and we attended a mid-week service for the first week of Advent this week.

And, as its the first week of Advent (very nearly the second as I write this), I think that this is a perfectly good time to begin these festivities.

What I haven’t given much thought to is gifts. We’ve picked up a couple here and there, and my parents have asked us for our list. I’ve thought of the family members to which we ship gifts each year. I just really haven’t felt the pressure to rush out and buy things and send them off. I’m intentionally trying to keep it at bay, as well as my desire to receive any gifts beyond some simple things, or needed things.

Then, of course, Karen mentioned that I might be getting a new iPhone for Christmas, and my materialism kicked right in.

I just don’t want it to be this. I wish it were something more. I know that it can be something more. Attending just a brief Advent service this week calmed me, gave me a sense of peace, a sense of focus. That’s what I want to hold onto this season. I’m sure that I’ll enjoy a rushed shopping trip or two with the family, but what I’m most interested in is family, and faith, this Christmas season. Gifts will happen, but they will be incidental. And most certainly not a source of stress, because that will defeat the point.

Suddenly, it seems like that could be quite the accomplishment if I can pull it off. I’m going to give it a good attempt, though. And now I’m going to work on decorations.

Photo Attribution: Life’s Too Short

Decompression?

Mondays are the worst for it. That feeling that, by 9:00 p.m., I’m screeching to a halt with the remains of the various clutter that was in the moving vehicle of my day falling on the floor around me as I realize that, much to my chagrin, I have to pick it all up and make some neatness out of this before retiring for the night.

Those close to me say I’m too tense. Its a valid criticism.

As much as I make concerted efforts to slow down, to incorporate contemplation into my lifestyle, to limit the amount of media intake I experience and carefully balance productivity, the truth is that I still remain tense. Life isn’t as bad as before I stopped listening to the “writers must write every day” gospel, but still…I’m tense. I realize it the most on weeks like this, when I return from a holiday that was relaxing and that permitted me to unwind from all of the obligations and schedules and stressors of the average week and enjoy my family, a good book, and a few good movies. Only to return and be launched right back into Monday.

Mondays are the worst for it.

I made a reference this week to how I needed to get moving on a book that I started over the weekend, because it is my bookclub’s choice for November, and so I’m on a deadline to finish it by Wednesday. Karen responded that the great thing about books is that you pick them up and put them down as you have time. I insisted that I have a deadline. (And, besides, I find this a bit hypocritical of someone who read like half a novel in a single sitting on Sunday, to tell the truth. Grumble grumble grumble).

Now, I haven’t always been like this. In fact, its come and gone in phases around the academic cycles of my life. During my undergrad years, when I juggled two majors and major design work in every show my theatre department staged, sleep was a luxury that occurred on occasion. Then, once I entered the professional world, life became less stressful. I worked my nine-to-five, and returned home to my personal life, which was largely fun and un-rushed. Then came grad school, and I was plunged back into the world of homework and research, but at a level of intensity that I had never before experienced (it was my bright idea to pursue my master’s degree full-time). All the while maintaining employment and working as a teaching assistant in order to go to school for next-to-free. I became stressed. I adopted coping skills of extremely disciplined work schedules that involved almost no relaxation time in order to make good grades and still make a living. I had very little personal life. I always had a book by my bedside that was a class assignment, another in my bag, and a paper on my laptop.

Oh, what I wouldn’t have given to have had e-reader technology a couple of years early.

In any case, my point is that I became very, very driven. I couldn’t permit myself to relax if I was to keep that schedule. In retrospect, I should have altered the schedule, but there you have it. Three years of almost no relaxation. The problem is that I haven’t been able to let go of it this time. I haven’t learned to relax, unless I’m on holiday or vacation. I consider every book I’m reading to have a deadline, and I’m stressed if I haven’t reached a designated chapter by the end of the day. Or if I haven’t reached a word-count on a writing project by the same time. Or if I haven’t made it through my to-do list.

The problem is that I think I’m missing a lot of life by keeping all of my self-imposed deadlines.

So, I need to relax. I think we all need to relax. I’m glad that the Advent season sort of builds in time for us to do just that, and, as we’re nearing the time for New Year’s resolutions to occur, I’m going to toss mine out now. I’m going to relax. Really, I am. Learning to relax is now on a list, with a deadline, color-coded and prioritized.

Wait…that may not work…

Photo Attribution: Kimmo Palosaari

A Game Changer

As Thanksgiving Day festivities (read: I ate entirely too much food) drew to a close late last night, I was in a conversation with a family member about video games. Some of the family were leaving a couple of hours from that time to arrive at a Back Friday sale at midnight to pick up a video game that has, apparently, been long anticipated by gamers. We talked about how I’ve always sort of found video games to be time-wasters, and that I’ve always had better things to do with my time. Its not that I think gamers are weird or anything…I have a lot of friends that are gamers. And while I was heavily into role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons when I was young, video games just aren’t anything that have ever interested me.

The other family members in the conversation, though, offered a different perspective. They find video games to be interactive storytelling. They describe detailed world-building, beautiful artwork, and an experience that is never the same twice, because the player will make different decisions that alter the outcome of the story in different ways…not dissimilar to the Choose Your Own Adventure books of old.

This intrigued me, because this is similar to the theatre experience. Live performances are never the same twice. Different plays are interpreted differently by different directors and actors. The same cast will experience completely different performances on different nights because of different audiences, the reactions of whom are necessary for the complete experience, and alter each play considerably.

So, I thought, if you view video games in this light, then they begin to look like very legitimate forms of art: in the words of my family member, a form of storytelling with “more depth.” In fact, I think of schools with MFA in creative writing programs that offer coursework in writing for games.

So, to complete my education, the family pointed me toward some video samples of some of their favorite games.

Storytelling? Sounds interesting to me. And, just to appreciate the artistry of the worlds that are built for these games, I was impressed by the detail and the beauty of this one:

I was thinking about the wealth of creative talent involved in this last clip: the digital animators, the musicians, the voice actors, the writers, the post-production technicians. This is on par with an animated short, at least. And when I think about writing a story with so many possible twists and turns that can change with interactivity, I suddenly find myself very appreciative of the specific skills required.

So, while I doubt seriously that I’ll ever become a gamer, and while I’m still troubled by the many cases of video game addiction that can plague those who invest too much time these worlds, I’m thinking that this possibility exists with any creative endeavor, and any participation in alternate fictional worlds. That doesn’t, I suppose, make the participation itself a bad thing. So, the result of my 2011 Thanksgiving holiday is to find a new appreciation for the art of video games.

Learning something new is a beautiful thing.

Shhh…

I had a conversation with my wife recently about a conversation that she had with a mutual friend about an incident that happened to this friend. The incident involves a powerful topic that I think needs to be discussed. Its a topic that fits the context of this blog well. To explore the topic, though, would involve my re-telling the story, even if in the most vague of terms. And, in fact, I drafted just such a post this week. It will remain unpublished for the time being, however, shrouded in an ethical uncertainty that, as it turns out, makes for a pretty good discussion in its own right.

I contacted my friend on Monday about the story. She liked the idea of presenting the issue in this space, but was uncomfortable with relating the story in any form, because others were involved. This is a huge reason that it remains unpublished here, because I’m still working through where the ethical boundaries lie.

I’ve had friends make references before to how their conversations with me end up being told here, sort of half-joking that they should be careful what they say around me. I suppose the problem with being friends with a blogger is that we write about how we encounter life, and that, by necessity, involves our friends and loved ones. Typically, it isn’t an issue, because the conversations we’re telling on the blogosphere, while thought-provoking, are innocent enough. And, generally, I can tell the conversations with enough anonymity that an individual couldn’t be identified through my discussion. I make every effort, in fact, to do so. And, honestly, I don’t usually ask permission.

During my brief dabbling in journalism, I learned very quickly that there’s really no such thing as “off the record.” Similarly, because I blog about the way I encounter life and because my friends and family necessarily play into that, there’s really no such thing as a conversation that has no chance of being referenced in a post here at some point. The difference, though…and this is huge…is the nature of what is being published.

Whether or not blogging by those of us who aren’t journalism professionals can be considered true journalism isn’t a new debate. Its been discussed since blogging was in its infancy, and the concept of user-generated content became the norm. However, what I’m blogging here isn’t news, and so the ethical weight of communicating what the public has a right to know isn’t a burden I currently bear. I write about ideas, trying to contribute them to the pubic sphere. However, if a friend asks me to not publish something they’ve said, or to not write it in such a way that they are connected to it, then I do my best to respect that choice. They have a right to privacy.

There are a handful of legal obligations that govern blogging, but not many. I think there are more ethical obligations that govern blogging, and I’m sensitive to those. I don’t think that I needed the legal consent of anyone involved in my friend’s story to discuss it here, but her story was still hearsay in as far as it involved them. That is to say, from a journalistic perspective, I couldn’t have confirmed her story through two independent sources.

Still, the conversation would, I think, spark great thoughts and debate if I put out there.

Ultimately, protecting the best interest and confidence of a friend and her colleagues wins. Perhaps I can eventually find a way to present the issue here without connecting it to my conversation with her, but for now I can’t, so I’ll keep it in my file of thoughts.

What do you think are the ethics of blogging, whether or not you write one yourself? I’m interested in your perspective.

Photo Attribution: KaiChanVong