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Like Any Good Whorehouse, America Does Its Customers One At A time

I feel like I’m living in a foreign country today. Make an error in driving and you either get the finger, or worse . . . make a credit card payment a day late and the bank thinks they have the right to mug you . . . take your family to a ball game and someone has the balls to charge you $10 bucks for a [expletive] beer.”

Across America

A Nation Of Isolated One Nighters

My question was simple: “Do you feel your country has changed in your lifetime?” Based on those we have interviewed, there is a significant age skew in how strongly people feel alienated.  Those under the age of 30 seem far more inclined to accept things as they are as long as they personally benefit. Those  over 40 have far stronger views — for they almost universally decry living in an America under the thumb of criminal bankers, corrupt politicians, irresponsible insurance companies and values deficient education.

But none of this prepared us for the breadth of complaints, or the depth of people’s feelings of alienation, dislocation, dismay and despair as we sought to better understand how people here at home, and overseas, see the changes unfolding from the first decade of the 21st century. To put it mildly, we got an earful.

America On The Make

“I don’t know where we went wrong,” one professional man proclaimed, “but I feel like I’m living in a foreign country today. It’s like the whole country is constantly on the make — anxious to score as long as there are no consequences.  Wham, Bam — thank you mam.”

“What are you driving at?” I asked.

“We’re all about quick transactions in which someone gets screwed. It’s all sort of anonymous — business, relationships, employers — they’re all sort of one-shot things — shallow and short term. Make an error in driving and you either get the finger, or worse . . . make a credit card payment a day late and the bank thinks they have the right to mug you . . . take your family to a ball game and someone has the balls to charge you $10 bucks for a [expletive] beer.”

A woman interviewed on local television was on the verge of tears when she blurted out, “When my husband’s company folded we lost our health insurance, then when I was laid off we lost our home. How do I tell my kids we may have to move to a shelter? Why did this happen? Does anybody really know?”

Talking Without Saying Anything

Maybe we are a nation on the make, I told a few close friends.

“You just figured that out?” Harley Blank asked me.

Then Bill Moore focused our discussion. He had come across an article authored by David Pogue, Personal Tech writer for the New York Times. Bill found the attitudes revealed and discussed in Pogue’s Verizon: How Much Do You Charge Now to be reflective of the coarsening he sees rampant in the United States.

“Wherever one goes, it seems like many people are spending a lot for inconsequential chat, sometimes ignoring their kids in the grocery store, possibly endangering themselves or others while driving, etc.

“At times, being connected is essential but otherwise it may be a costly addiction. The more that cell-phones can do, the more people seem to want to use them. Some youngsters and teenagers get hooked on texting, and some slip into sexting. And, some adults seem to be talking to themselves with a Bluetooth thingie in their ear.

“I have no idea where ever-increasing cell-phone/smart-phone use will plateau, if ever. But, I am concerned that there are only a few carriers, and they seem able to bury important user terms in fine print that many people can’t read or understand. Maybe AT&T and Verizon will come under greater government scrutiny and regulation if enough people complain about their business practices. Or, are they too big to regulate effectively?”

Phone Muggings

As the conversation moved away from the general and toward the specific, so did the clarity of both issues and their implications. SaaS visionary, consultant and lecturer Mikael Blaisdell, made his case both personal and clear. Mikael works with aspiring SaaS executives to show that the most profitable aspect of the relationship with any customer extends far beyond the initial seduction. Strange term in this context, but nevertheless pithy and apt.

That notion got my attention — as did Mikael’s epistle supporting Bill Moore’s observations.

Once upon a time, I had a dumb-phone connected to Verizon. I had one of those “choose a new phone for free ( and commit to 2 years ) contracts. And to no one’s surprise, after the end of the 1st year of the agreement, Verizon sent me invite after invite, encouraging me to exercise my contractual right to get a new phone ( and extend the 2 year agreement for another 2 years ). I cheerfully ignored them all.

Then they called me. “We’re concerned — you haven’t gotten a new phone! Your existing one is over THREE years old!”

Yes, I know — says I.

“But don’t you want to have a NEW phone, for FREE?”

No. Or rather, I do, but you don’t offer it, so I’m going to wait for a bit.

“But, we’ve got LOTS of really cool NEW phones — surely we’ve got one you’d like NOW.”

Do you offer the iPhone?

“Well, no, but we’ve got NEW phones that are just as good! Surely you’d like to have one of them.”

Nope — says I. And a couple of months later, I bought my iPhone and cancelled my Verizon agreement. “Hmmm,” says the rep. “There might be a termination charge on this.” Look again, says I. I haven’t had a new phone in three years, so I’m month to month, and this is the month I leave.

That was 18 months ago, I’ve been delighted with my iPhone and have no plans for replacing it. It doesn’t have un-reprogrammable buttons that send you to places you don’t want to go, it doesn’t have trick charges to run up your bill — It just works. Always. Easily and cleanly. And every now and again, Verizon calls up to ask if they can tempt me back. It’s a short conversation. Do you offer the iPhone, I ask? When they say no, I tell them that they can call me back when A) they do, and B) they offer a better deal than AT&T for the connection. It may happen, someday.

Some might claim I got gouged or overcharged when I bought it. I don’t think so. It always does what I want it to do when I want it done and the total price seems very reasonable to me. I don’t have to worry about people sending me malware or viruses, or being infected just by visiting a website. I can add all kinds of applications to it — over 110K different options at last count. And it’s got most of my music library on it as well. You get what you pay for.

Bank Muggings

One of our London friends made clear America was not alone in changing for the worse. “People over here are really pissed off at those blokes in the city who did this to us.”

“You mean the bankers, right?” we asked.

“Damn crooks they are,” he exclaimed, “but it’s you yanks that started all this with all your wheeling and dealing bullshit. You’re a crass people,” he assured me, “on account you got a whorehouse mentality. That’s what you’ve got!”

“I beg to disagree,” I argued. “We’re more a nation of one nighters.”

“Yeah,” he smiled, “That, too. Either way you’re doing one another one at a time.”

I knew he had a point, for I had been hearing similar comments from people I’ve known for years, and a great many other voices paraded out in the media.

So when someone told me, “My bank’s been phoning me daily – on account I exceeded my overdraft. Now I’m really pissed off! Why they charge $200 per month for me going over my overdraft limit I don’t know.  I’ve been with them 40 years .. I asked them to raise the limit temporarily, they say no – then charge me $200 per month for going over, which pushes me further over. Seems these guys are hurting big on account of the Dubai World loans they made. So I get shafted.  Their $200 fee sends me over every month so there’s another damn $200 fee. Loyalty and civility don’t matter any more — at least not here in Britain.”

America’s Echo

When asked about the America one sees today, NM correspondent Tony Koorlander chimed in, “I don’t recognize my country today either — young folks on the street drunk and unemployed. Rudeness, aggressiveness and incivility. We got ‘em too,” he said, speaking of America’s uncivil attitudes, ” — in spades!. When you look at what Tony Blair did, and now Gordon Brown, it’s like we’ve become an American echo. Politicians and bankers are doing us in.”

“Well, sure,” I assured Tony, “given the arrogance reflected in your MP scandals — and the accusations of failure by the likes of Oliver James, it’s a wonder you’ve not run all your banks and MPs out of town.”

“Politicians gain their credibility by their actions,” Koorlander told me, “and all of them look to the past and try to emulate anew those characteristics that made their predecessors great.  Tony Blair’s throwaway line in the runup to the Iraq ‘invasion’ … ‘ the future will judge our actions to have been right’ … er .. NO. ”

“Well, like us, you have to elect someone to run the country”

“Whomever we elect, their prime weakness is THEIR need to be elected.  Human requirement for recognition, self justification and accolade lead to huge mistakes that echo for generations. Those we should trust do not live in the real world of the man in the street.  Think of this! Banks and financial institutions make a big mistake that wrecks the foundation of our manufacturing and the levels of employment, by gross depression of the marketplace.”

“So – how do we fix this?” I wondered aloud.

Koorlander was ready to pounce.  “We payoff the banks – ignore the manufacturing industries and the man in the street – who must be chided for being inefficient, suffer and probably fail completely never to return. An epidemic mistake that will bring the economy to its knees eventually – whatever the present spin.”

“Is that the fix?” I asked.

“No!” he replied. “That’s what we did. It’s what you did. It’s what Europe is trying to do. And look at what’s happened. The bad guys get bailed out and the rest of us  find ourselves out of work, out of money, or out of time.”

Harley Blank, David Parsons, Mikael Blaisdell, Tony Koorlander and Jeff Slee contributed ideas to this essay.

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