Non Voice Process

Photo by Icons8 Team on Unsplash

Alleged "millennial entitlement" is just one side of a typically exploitative and shameless coin.

If I was in the mood to be a boomer, I'd talk about how my generation is spoilt. So spoilt that we expect everything delivered to our doorsteps. And for banks to do their work without having to be yelled at. 

But our generation is also manning those customer service centres. Our generation are also the delivery executives and bank drudges. And we're all getting paid a pittance while being severely overworked. 

Many of those people are our friends and colleagues. Many of those people are us. 

I contacted Swiggy customer service once after getting food poisoning from an order. The responder was, I realized, a friend of a friend -- someone I had met a couple of times. I didn't follow up on it because of the intense sense of souring that followed. What was I gonna do? Berate that guy knowing how his job is and the fact that he had nothing to do with any of this? Divulge the fact that I was currently spewing from both ends thanks to Bowl Company? (Last time I ever ordered from that disgusting "restaurant" btw.) 

When I tried to raise tickets for my missing Dunzo order, I received no response even after an hour. And it wasn't difficult to understand why. My friend works in a similar job and gets hundreds of chats and emails assigned to him all at once. Even at peak efficiency, customers may have to wait for half an hour before someone can get to them. If all the executives are busy, well... 

So I went ahead and blasted the app on Twitter, retweeting other customers complaints while I was at it. (4 or 5 others faced the same issue within the last few hours today). They got back to me on twitter and initiated refunds. No explanation was given as to why my order had been marked delivered while I sat here, decidedly order-less. 

Mind you, putting a company on blast on their social media is one thing. Screaming at customer support in a private chat or conversation is a whole other ball game. The second is... more personal.

The cognitive dissonance in such situations is overwhelming. I flinch, suddenly, simultaneously both the attacker and the attacked. Because I've lost count of the number of times I've had to deal with disgruntled customers at work. 

Just because you're a customer doesn't mean that isn't somebody's workplace. It would behoove us all to use language more appropriate to the workplace. It would behoove us to remember that the person we're speaking to likely had nothing to do with the issue we're complaining about. 

The way companies in Bangalore often treat their employees is horrifying. Often, these aren't even employees - they're "consultants". Because why hire people permanently when you can use a labour law loophole to exploit them instead? But that's a longer discussion for another day. 

For now, all I can do is point out that alleged "millennial entitlement" is just one side of a typically exploitative and shameless coin. And people are still rushing to make us feel bad about even these minor creature comforts. This is the technology and service we're killing ourselves to help create. The least we can do is be allowed to whine about it.