Service

Depending on what culture you are from you may have experienced what I am about to describe. In my country it is very much the case in the service sector of the market that younger and younger people are employed as front line personel. In short, people of the new school.

Aside from the obvious financial benefit this has brought to the employers, since younger, inexperienced people are cheaper, it may be worth pointing out another very important point about this situation.

In the past when the service sector was a relatively fresh industry, following the downsizing of the work force in aggriculture caused by the technology available around the start of the 20^th century, there was a period where it had include a certain flexibility to market itself. The kind of flexibility you would probably only experience presently if you get in contact with someone with a higher grade of responsibility than the service level. The shop keeper or to a lesser extent the manager. Most managers would not apply though. They are put in place to uphold the rules put down by their own employer and their job is based mostly on making sure the staff beneath them bends no rules and applies no flexibility.

Not because the industry tries to work against flexibility, but because the total stream lining of the service sector has allowed for a much more rigid rule set. If you do not like the rules in place at a restaurant or a store, you are pretty much out of luck. Because you can be certain that a quite similar set of rules are in place in whatever other place you may visit.

This may or may not bother you. If it does not I would venture the guess that it is because you have not thought it through. Surely you would rise to some level of discontent if you realised that you had been manipulated into the acceptance of this.

The most modern and ”hip” places introduced this concept into our culture and since then we have come to accept it on a daily basis. We are now at the point where we consider good service the abnormal and remember it for days when some employee somewhere gave us a personal experience. But why is this? Should it not be preferable for society to accept only bad service as the abnormal?

The reason for this rigid business model that we are all supporting with our purchases out of the lack of proper alternatives, is of course that it works. It works to cut back on the extent of service, because the extent of service mostly implies the extent of lowering expected pay for whatever service was given. Deductions and good will are concepts swept under the carpet and the consumer remains ever oblivious.

And this is just the beginning. Now that the industry has us accepting a very poor standard of service, they can easily make the transfer to automated kiosks everywhere. In the grocery store, in the café, in the restaurants and in the malls. For what is more rigid than a machine? And companies know this. They exploit it. They are very much interested in automating the process of purchasing everywhere.

Criticism

Most people today are familiar with the idea that it is easier to notice the flaws of others than the flaws of oneself. To my knowledge this is an idea originating from the teachings of Christ, which would make it a lesson from the new testament. Without needing to debate religious subjects to dig deeper, it is perfectly possible to reflect on how this has had an effect on the larger social evolution that has happened since then.

Many people revert to this mantra every time they are called out on making a mistake. Indeed it is a practise we spend considerable amounts of time on disapproving of in public. We disapprove of politicians that spend their valuable time for preaching their own mass appeal on preaching of the lack of mass appeal in their adversaries instead.

So it would be safe to assume that we have made it a cultural phenomenon to express discontent with any one flawed person or group to criticise another person or group. In this respect it becomes somewhat impossible to be honest about oneself and constructive towards others. Because by default we are all useless as critics to one another, as we are all “sinners”.

Since evolution has made us a socially dependant animal I would propose something entirely different to this approach discussed above. It is possible that we have developed in a fashion that made us superior at noticing the mistakes of others simply because we have spent so much time through history on looking outwards. At others and at society. Indeed it compliments us well in social contexts that we can function as coaches for others.

Imagine that from this instance people were better at coaching themselves than others. What would spark our drive towards mutual inspiration? How would we surpass anything previously thought of, if we were only better critics of what we had produced or proposed ourselves, rather than of the common wealth of knowledge and produce of all others?

Is it possible that this natural inclination towards outward criticism is culturally fought because if we accepted this perspective as innate, if not to our entire species then at least to our contemporary culture, we would rise towards our current potential and possibly evolve our social sphere?

Cause is mentioned here as there is conservative inclination in most social contexts to resist any change that could potentially snowball into more changes. “Controlled change” is even a phrase used by modern conservative politicians.

Recently

Following a period of illness and complications I had to conclude that blogging was the least of my priorities. This is why the activity has been decreasing to the point of fading completely.

To make up for this I have written a new post that will be published early tomorrow concerned with social evolution.