ON LOSING MY CURRENCY

ON LOSING MY CURRENCY

By the time I finally made my way through the Chatbot to the Specialist (i.e. human) I was already immersed in  that boiling stew of frustration and fury in which I’ve found myself increasingly often in recent years. As I attempted, with little success, to both explain myself to and understand the input from the heavily-accented Specialist, I, an infrequent weeper, was on the brink of tears of rage and chagrin. I saw myself from afar, as if I were hovering in the air high above my desk. What I saw:  a woman, shoulders hunched over her  keyboard, face covered by her hands in the distinct posture of despair.  I saw an old woman.

This was a shock. I had never perceived myself this way before, despite the fact that I’m in my early 70s. But I’m physically robust and generally mistaken for someone 15 years younger than I am. Until recently, this happy state was bolstered by considerable presence, driven in large part by the  projection of my powerful self- confidence. There was no sign of confidence in the elderly woman I observed. I saw a querulous creature, devoid of the competence which until recently illuminated my life. What happened to me?

I had lost my problem-solving agency. Until the advent of “customer service” rendered through websites, robots, endless voicemail queues, circular navigation mazes, terminology devoid of the traditional meanings familiar to the literate, and (if and when you could wrestle your way through these barriers), humans confined to prepared scripts – I had been a legendary problem-solver. My skills were few but profound:  impeccable logic, delivered through the similarly impeccable interpersonal skills we term Charm. I knew when to apply humor, how and when to move my voice from warmth to chill, how to find some seed of connection with whomever I was dealing. I knew how to extract and provide information –  after all, I was a senior consultant whose portfolio included developing interpersonal skills training, and writing Users Manuals for the massive government programs that started to appear in the 1980s. I was no luddite.

But all of these skills were predicated on human contact. What becomes of the kind of People Person I’ve always been, when regardless of your best efforts to solve a problem, you cannot access an unscripted human? I’d be interested in finding out the impact that is having on others.  But for me, there was a slow whittling away of my identity, in which competence had always been a key feature. As I viewed this much-reduced older woman, I realized I was now almost devoid of the currency needed to solve my own business problems, and that was hugely evident in the posture of the woman I saw.

I did not get my problem solved through my chat with the Specialist.  Throughout the day, my anger and frustration blanketed me like a dark shroud.  Later that afternoon, I had a Eureka moment when I realized that the underlying issue in the problem I was dealing with, was one of how Rogers (the telecommunications company I was dealing with), categorized various services but failed to explain to customers.  I knew that if I could find someone to explain that to, in person, then we’d be well on our way to solving my problem. So I hopped into the car and took myself to the nearest Roger store, which is staffed by often-pleasant young humans. No scripts.

When I walked in, a young man greeted me. “Hi.  I’m baffled” I said. “Hey Baffled”, he responded – “I’m Dave. What can I do for you”. 

And just like that –  I laughed, he laughed, my dark shroud dematerialized, and I felt myself, the Myself I’ve long known and mostly liked, return. Dave and I did indeed resolve the issue on which I’d spent 2.5 hours online earlier, in 10 minutes.  That was noteworthy.  But it didn’t compare to the shocking difference I felt in my soul, as the dark shroud slipped away, to be replaced by the comforting familiarity of having fun interacting with a human.  I felt then, and still do – that if I continue with the identity of reduced competence I have experienced, I will shorten my life.  Or at least the joyful part of it.

So now – the challenge. How to exist in the online help world of today, while still preserving my sense of self.  I already have a list I won’t trouble you with, as a starting point. Or more to the point –  as the first “next steps”. The first step is obvious —  go to where you can deal with humans first. If you are lucky enough to know of such a place.

—

Ellie Beals is the author of Emergence, a genre-bending psychological thriller appropriately described in one of her favorite reviews as a “quirky Canadian backwoods thriller”. Like her Emergence protagonist, Ellie is retired management consultant who splits her time between Ottawa, where she trains and competes her Golden Retrievers and coaches other Obedience competitors, and West Quebec, where she is an avid outdoor recreationist. In both locales, she keeps a Next Novel on the backburner while documenting her introspections on the evolution of popular culture, in which she sometimes finds herself a stranger in a strange land.

FB: https://www.facebook.com/ThrillerEmergence

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BealsEllie

EMERGENCE

“A slow-burn thriller. Emergence …. makes for a deliciously disquieting ride…”—4.5 star IndieReader Approved Review

“Cass has many moments in the woods when the hair on the back of her neck rises and she cannot identify why, and the reader shares that sensation…” —Front and Finish Journal

It starts with Just Watching. But danger emerges when Just Watching ends.

When the “wild child” Xavier first encounters Cass Harwood and her dogs in the woods of West Quebec, he is enthralled. Unknown to them, he Just Watches them in a lengthy ongoing surveillance, before finally staging a meeting. His motives are uncertain-even to him.

The intersection of the lives of Cass, a competitive dog handler; her dogs; her cousin Lori; and the complex and enigmatic Xavier leads them all into a spiral of danger. It starts when Just Watching ends-when Cass and her crew encounter tragedy in the bush. Xavier’s involvement in the tragedy, unknown to Cass, sets off a chain of potentially lethal events that begin in the dark woods of Lac Rouge, when hiking, skiing, hunting, trapping, marijuana grow-ops, and pedophilia collide. It matures in the suburbs of both Ottawa and Baltimore, and culminates back in Lac Rouge, when Lori’s spurned and abusive lover arrives uninvited at Cass’ isolated cabin in the woods. In the night. In the cold. In the heavily falling snow. His arrival is observed by Xavier, whose motives are again uncertain, but whose propensity for action is not.

Join Xavier, Lori, Cass, and the realistic and compelling dogs that are essential players in this dark drama as their fates converge in a deadly loop of revenge, fear, guilt, and hope.

BUY HERE

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Category: On Writing