"Cordell, Arthur: #ECOM - COMÉ" wrote:
>
> Bravo! Self service is no service at all. We just access part of the
> bank's (or supermarket, or gas station, etc.) mainframe, and doing the work
> ourselves, complicate our day and put people out of work. Amazing. And we
> call it progress.
[snip]
Self-service sometimes is a *big* service. If I had a
car I liked (e.g., the BMW 318ti I lusted after when
I had a long commute to work --> You had better believe I
would pay *more* to pump the gas myself instead of letting
some Who-cares? bring that sharp piece of
metal near my enamel!
But, no doubt about it, more often it is the other way
around. In August my wife committed the almost
mortal sin of getting a cash advance from a non-Fleet
ATM machine (we bank with Fleet because they
bought out Nat West...).
We always pay our credit
card balances in full each month [I like the "float",
and not carrying cash]. Somehow this little
financial cancer cell got into our bank accounts
*without showing up in the monthly balance*. So we
start getting *FINANCE CHARGES!* Christmas Eve,
I call up the bank to try to get the thing straightened
out. To make a long story short: (1) I found out that
anything you pay on your credit card account is
applied *TO THE LOWEST INTEREST BALANCE FIRST*, so that
(2) The only way to kill the cancer was to: (A) Pay
off *everything on the account including anything
we had charged after the latest statement in full +
the cash advance*, and also *not use the card
until the check cleared*. A first line supervisor
told me the magic number, which was a couple
hundred dollars over the balance due. (B) we
did as we were told. [Oh, yes, the supervisor told
me she was not allowed to give me her supervisor's
name, and threatened me about my verbal abuse of her!]
(C) We got our new monthly statement -----> WITH
ANOTHER FINANCE CHARGE.
So yesterday I go to my neighborhood Fleet branch,
and the manager, after about half an hour of herself
having trouble getting anywhere, finally gets
the finance charges cancelled and the tumor
removed and also she gives me the name of the
person to bring back to the branch if my next bill
is not right.
Needless to say: (1) I went in the branch making
it very clear I was very angry [because I felt *helpless*!].
And (2) I thanked the manager profusely for her help.
So there's the two sides of "self-serve", in my
opinion.
"Capitalism" is one of mankind's greatest
inventions: It enabled exploiters to claim
they were only hurting you because thay had to
hurt you to not hurt you and lots of other
people worse ("the invisible hand"). Computers
added a second good reason why nobody
is to blame for your (i.e., in each case: my)
getting hurt --> because the computer does it that
way to *everybody*. Stalin and Hitler were idiots: If you
didn't like what they were doing to you,
you at least had a target to try to
shoot at.
As Odysseus would have answered the Cyclops if
he was alive today:
Cyclops: "Who put out my eye?"
Odysseus: "The invisible hand of the market did it!"
Cyclops [calling his colleagues for aid]: "Help!
The invisible hand of the market put out my eye!"
And, of course, none of his colleagues come to his
aid, because they all know that that's just what the
invisible hand of the market does to Cyclopses --
so there is no problem [Odysseus's real answer,
of course, was: "Nobody" -- and, when the Cyclops
yelled: "Nobopdy has hurt me!", all his colleagues
figured he did not have a problem, because he told
them so himself!]
\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua NY 10514-3403 USA
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