Those kinds of people won’t really be any nicer without this training, either. At least we can make them take it for a day. I’m still behind the plan (however, at a lot of places you need more than 1 day of experience to grasp how the whole system works and why some complaints are actually ridiculous).
My thought project on the subject is actually a bit more expansive -
Before the age of 25, everyone must complete 1000 hours (~6 mo) in a customer facing position in one of the following roles:
Retail
Food Service
Call Center
Service must be completed with under x number of verified complaints.
Age limit may have to be tweaked. There would have to be some kind of oversight board to prevent people from being assholes the whole time they’re there. Also, some kind of minimum service block to prevent doing it piecemeal a week at a time or something.
ETA - but, because everyone has to go through it so everyone knows the parameters, there would need to be guardrails against customers holding complaints over the employees head.
When I worked in call centers, we would always joke that management should give away “non-recorded call passes” as incentives. At any point in a call, you could place the caller on hold, head into a different room, and continue the call from there. No recordings, no repercussions, nothing - just a black box of account activity. You could tell the customer exactly what you think of their bullshit threat to cancel their service.
I tell that story to say that, with some tweaking, I think that could be worked into a way to prevent customers from gaming the system. If you knew that every employee got 1 free “punch a customer in the face” card per month, you might think twice before mouthing off.
You can get “drafted” by local retailers and you must complete 2x your remaining time? Or maybe you have to join the Job Corps or something?
My initial thought is something like where each infraction tacks on another week, maybe?
There’s a lot of red teaming and game theory work that would need to be done to tighten up exactly these kinds of questions. But it’s difficult because the entire point of the exercise is to try and instill some empathy into people, and it’s hard to do that without making it easy to game, and making it onerous defeats the purpose.
Like, if a woman went to college, then stayed and got her master’s, and was then on track to do her service and finish just before her 25th birthday but got pregnant, there shouldn’t be any punishment for that. Her time should just be tolled until she’s able to work again. Same thing with someone getting sick. But then you run the risk of something like people getting fake doctor notes and being perpetually sick to avoid it. I would want to make sure that everyone has to go through with it, regardless of financial or social status. No “senator’s son” deferments, ya know?
what would you do if they got verified bullshit complaints, like “i did not like their shoes” and they wear vibrams around the office? that’s verifiable, legitimate, and totally bullshit.
I’ve had VERY similar thoughts on the matter in the past few years (compulsory hospitality service, for about ~half a year), and I dig your terms. Please send link to signatures when you start your campaign.
While I’ve subscribed to this philosophy for decades at this point, there is a possible issue that was really hammered home by COVID -
there will be a non-zero number of people who will be even shittier because “I had to
ensureendure it, so they should, too!”Those kinds of people won’t really be any nicer without this training, either. At least we can make them take it for a day. I’m still behind the plan (however, at a lot of places you need more than 1 day of experience to grasp how the whole system works and why some complaints are actually ridiculous).
yeah, i say one week minimum (but i learn fast). maybe one month?
My thought project on the subject is actually a bit more expansive -
Age limit may have to be tweaked. There would have to be some kind of oversight board to prevent people from being assholes the whole time they’re there. Also, some kind of minimum service block to prevent doing it piecemeal a week at a time or something.
ETA - but, because everyone has to go through it so everyone knows the parameters, there would need to be guardrails against customers holding complaints over the employees head.
When I worked in call centers, we would always joke that management should give away “non-recorded call passes” as incentives. At any point in a call, you could place the caller on hold, head into a different room, and continue the call from there. No recordings, no repercussions, nothing - just a black box of account activity. You could tell the customer exactly what you think of their bullshit threat to cancel their service.
I tell that story to say that, with some tweaking, I think that could be worked into a way to prevent customers from gaming the system. If you knew that every employee got 1 free “punch a customer in the face” card per month, you might think twice before mouthing off.
Hm…
You can get “drafted” by local retailers and you must complete 2x your remaining time? Or maybe you have to join the Job Corps or something?
My initial thought is something like where each infraction tacks on another week, maybe?
There’s a lot of red teaming and game theory work that would need to be done to tighten up exactly these kinds of questions. But it’s difficult because the entire point of the exercise is to try and instill some empathy into people, and it’s hard to do that without making it easy to game, and making it onerous defeats the purpose.
Like, if a woman went to college, then stayed and got her master’s, and was then on track to do her service and finish just before her 25th birthday but got pregnant, there shouldn’t be any punishment for that. Her time should just be tolled until she’s able to work again. Same thing with someone getting sick. But then you run the risk of something like people getting fake doctor notes and being perpetually sick to avoid it. I would want to make sure that everyone has to go through with it, regardless of financial or social status. No “senator’s son” deferments, ya know?
what would you do if they got verified bullshit complaints, like “i did not like their shoes” and they wear vibrams around the office? that’s verifiable, legitimate, and totally bullshit.
Complaints would have to be about their actual conduct / job performance.
I’ve had VERY similar thoughts on the matter in the past few years (compulsory hospitality service, for about ~half a year), and I dig your terms. Please send link to signatures when you start your campaign.
Thank you for your support.