Some of our problems start with bad communication between individual people and larger entities, like companies and workplaces.

There are tons of texts for managers and marketers concerning the handling of people. There are fewer analyses of the situation for the individual.

(Worse, the successful ones become coopted, like Dilbert(tm).)

I'm a big fan of the notion of social contracts, and the ones between the individual and the non-Governmental collective have yet to be written acceptably.

Be aware of what commercial entities aren't allowed to do. F'rinstance, by law, they can't send you unsolicited junk faxes.

Have handy phone numbers and email addresses of people who fight this kind of stuff all the time.

If you make it convenient enough for yourself ahead of time, like making yourself a form that you can quickly fill out to complain about spam, you can lower the threshold of what puts you in action. Also, you should make record keeping easy for yourself.

Just take my word on this -- either it's a person operating without authority, or the company will find some way to weasel out of responsibility.

So take written note of the incident and move on.

Here's an excerpt from Steve Albini's The Trouble With Music, available from places like the Negativland site:


There are several reasons A & R scouts are always young. The explanation usually copped-to is that the scout will be "hip to the current musical "scene." A more important reason is that the bands will intuitively trust someone they think is a peer, and who speaks fondly of the same formative rock and roll experiences. The A & R person is the first person to make contact with the band, and as such is the first person to promise them the moon. Who better to promise them the moon than an idealistic young turk who expects to be calling the shots in a few years, and who has had no previous experience with a big record company. Hell, he's as naive as the band he's duping. When he tells them no one will interfere in their creative process, he probably even believes it. When he sits down with the band for the first time, over a plate of angel hair pasta, he can tell them with all sincerity that when they sign with company X, they're really signing with him and he's on their side. Remember that great gig I saw you at in '85? Didn't we have a blast. By now all rock bands are wise enough to be suspicious of music industry scum. There is a pervasive caricature in popular culture of a portly, middle aged ex-hipster talking a mile-a-minute, using outdated jargon and calling everybody "baby." After meeting "their" A & R guy, the band will say to themselves and everyone else, "He's not like a record company guy at all! He's like one of us." And they will be right. That's one of the reasons he was hired.

These A & R guys are not allowed to write contracts. What they do is present the band with a letter of intent, or "deal memo," which loosely states some terms, and affirms that the band will sign with the label once a contract has been agreed on. The spookiest thing about this harmless sounding little memo, is that it is, for all legal purposes, a binding document. That is, once the band signs it, they are under obligation to conclude a deal with the label. If the label presents them with a contract that the band don't want to sign, all the label has to do is wait. There are a hundred other bands willing to sign the exact same contract, so the label is in a position of strength. These letters never have any terms of expiration, so the band remain bound by the deal memo until a contract is signed, no matter how long that takes. The band cannot sign to another laborer or even put out its own material unless they are released from their agreement, which never happens. Make no mistake about it: once a band has signed a letter of intent, they will either eventually sign a contract that suits the label or they will be destroyed.

One of my favorite bands was held hostage for the better part of two years by a slick young "He's not like a label guy at all," A & R rep, on the basis of such a deal memo. He had failed to come through on any of his promises [something he did with similar effect to another well-known band], and so the band wanted out. Another label expressed interest, but when the A & R man was asked to release the band, he said he would need money or points, or possibly both, before he would consider it. The new label was afraid the price would be too dear, and they said no thanks. On the cusp of making their signature album, an excellent band, humiliated, broke up from the stress and the many months of inactivity.

Parallax

-- okay, it might seem an odd point, considering a collective entity has more than one set of eyes.

But one person's experience of a company from several different angles is more likely to notice things since there are no interpersonal transmission delays involved.

Flexibility

In some relationships, you can take as much or as little of your time in dealing with the company as you wish. You can take extensive notes when warranted, or forget about them altogether.

Keep track of your dealings with companies. For instance, don't delete any email --you never know when you'll need it as evidence.

Also, if you know you habitually save stuff, then you can know when a company rep tries to bluff you by saying she's sure she sent you that memo last Arbor Day ...

"All right, IBM! You know what? This is going on your permanent record!!"

I'm glad you asked me that! (ooops!)

Once a company looks like a person, it can attempt to feign peer-to-peer communication.

It tries to lull you into thinking you're meeting on the level.

Also, posing as an individual lets a company pretend to have a will and intentions comprehensible to us people.

If you're asking a company to do something, if you can get pointed to the next person down the chain at any point, there are some good reasons to do so.

FOR

1. Speed
   
2. Accuracy
   
3. Flexibility -- You get to see the open options more clearly.
   
4. Parallax View -- You see the company from more than one point of view, so you can better estimate what they can do to -- I mean, for -- you.
   

AGAINST

1. If an individual on the chain of what you need done takes a dislike to you, you're screwed.
   
2. Some individuals just aren't any good dealing with strangers. In theory, whoever the company chooses as its front end is.
   
3. If your contact is unpopular with his coworkers, they'll be more likely to associate you and your request with him.

Most place of employment have written policies about how to deal with you. How about vice-versa?

Okay, there's the benefits package, but what about day-to-day?

Is the company always straight with you when it comes to reporting its own health?

Does your boss accurately pass to you what senior management says? How about vice-versa? It's generally up to your boss' discretion to decide how much information gets through.

"Hosts, even the grandest, are nervous creatures and interpret curiosity as evidence of dissatisfaction." --Stephen Fry

Every member of a collective entity -- or at least every human member -- gets defensive when queried about areas under her responsibility.

At what point did potential customers become prey? Look at any news story about phone companies stealing each other's customers and you'll see a predator/prey relationship with the consumer is assumed as normal for a company.

Retaliation for such impudence on the part of the market is each person's responsibility. Familiarize yourself with the countermeasures available to you when the big guys step over the line.

There are a bunch of different individual/company relationships:

-The Job
-The Market
-Service Relationships

These are different relationships in many ways, but there are also similarities. Remembering the company's structure and priorities can lead to better-informed interactions.

Keep records! Companies keep files on you, so you certainly have the right to keep files on them.

Corporate entities also reflect the combined insecurities of their individual members. Internal communication slows down measurably when the people passing the message are uncertain of the repercussions or what policy on this subject is or who exactly is responsible for what.

So when what you're asking them to do breaks new ground, things can slow down to slower than a crawl.

This is good to remember when it's going to be down to a case of who told who about what, when.

The form is one of the preferred means of communication within companies and between companies and outsiders.

It's standardized, small in size and it looks published. It implies you're dealing with a recognized commercial entity or Government agency. It's not the customer, but an avatar of a customer request.

It also forces a company to stop trying to pretend it's an individual -- your buddy -- at least for the duration of the request.

The problem with tech support is that they DO deal mostly with incompetents. The average person calling them has a problem that's really dumb, like having the machine unplugged.

The trick is quickly establishing your level of expertise, so they can route your question accordingly. Good service centers can do this, but most don't.

For instance, when some sales rep is trying to tell you that her whole company will be your buddy for life ...


Doesn't it really send a chill down your spine when you suddenly realize that this person who is taking great interest in whatever nonsense you've felt comfortable to babble is doing it to make a sale?

Hey, he had it coming.

What an odd figure of speech. I guess a person who is in the market for pants and whose legs are different lengths is a tough customer.

But if a company is meeting your needs -- I mean, if you got your expected burger and beverage with a minimum of agony, there's no need for gratuitous fuss.

Pick your battles with care, since there's a finite number of battles you can attend.

That said, a company's people can get really upset if they can't meet a person's stated needs, if doing so is what they're supposed to do.

If there's one bit of information I want you to take with you, it's this:

The personnel department isn't just filled with "people" people --it's filled with "'people' people" people.

It's a department, and it has its own budget, so that means it's out for its own survival. It competes with your department for company resources, and it's in a position to stack the deck.

It makes policies designed to favor "people" people.

For every law or regulation out there, there's some bozo who has hooked his fate on it. So it's in this fellow's interest to see the rule enforced.

Sometimes it's useful to know this person's interest in this, because sometimes pressure can be applied here.

Sometimes a rule can be invoked that forces them to let you follow your request (what you want out of them) through the system rather than sit and wait for a result.

When you ask a person if they can do a task, they might well admit that their computer is down or their car won't start.

But companies seem to base their decisions and communications on what they could do if all their stuff worked. This is due to the cumulative effect of subordinates being dishonest with their bosses.

Notice how tech support at even allegedly user-friendly places never uses anything as convenient as email?

That's to prevent bothersome people becoming dependent on a specific support person. (Believe me, such people exist.)

But that guarantees that it'll feel like the company has an institutional memory of about zero.

Outlaws are people who are excluded by the law. (Am I a fucking genius, or what?)

Exclusions are of various levels and reasons and from various venues. From an eatery for not wearing a tie, from a job for being the wrong height, from freedom for not following laws ...

Some choose to be outlaws and some don't.

If there were any justice in the world, the amount of chic one drew from being an outlaw would be proportional to the amount of dues one has had to pay for being excluded.

This is generally the first corporate entity a person has to deal with. If you're there now, get used to it. Like we say on the job, if you like school, you'll lo-o-o-ove work!

Of course, it's the relationship where the controlling collective entity really has a lot of control. It's probably not until you get into a nursing home that so many people seem to share in running your life so intrusively.

But it's also a place to practice learning how companies work. Learn your faculty's table of organization and observe how they interact.

No matter your intentions for later life, whether you intend to conform or not, it's a good idea to observe who answers to whom in the school organization. And look at how intimidated they have your parents!

Hmmm ...

What follows is pure theory, and very dangerous to test.

Would a company respond better to a form you cooked up yourself?

After all, if you make it glossy enough ...

To:_____________________________________ Date:___/___/______ Rec'd:___/___/______ By:_________________________ Initials:______ Comments:				from the office of Harold Snardlough -- a Very Important Person Who wants you to do something.
Request: __________________________________________                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Due Date: ___/___/______ Contact:_______________________________ Phone:(____)____-______ Fax:(____)____-______ Email:___________________
Verify by: [] Phone [] Email [] Mail [] Visit	Verification 1: Date: __/__/__ Required:________________________________ Notes:___________________                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Checked: [] Initials:_____
	Verification 2: Date: __/__/__ Required:________________________________ Notes:___________________                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Checked: [] Initials:_____
	Verification 3: Date: __/__/__ Required:________________________________ Notes:___________________                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Checked: [] Initials:_____
Details of request:
Signatures:				Return to in-box until all verifications are complete.
				/ Really \ --- Spiffy --- \Graphic/

As I said, this has never been tested, so please don't sue me.

The theory behind the verification slots is that it might get the document re-examined a few times, to verify if your request is getting done. It's an attempt to combine the seductive power of a form with following the request in person.

... and I don't mean stuff they don't want you to know (a topic covered by many other people), but stuff that that is never true to say or stuff that they're structurally unable to say.



"... any company -- is just a way, one way, for people to organize themselves to do a job that's too big for one person to do alone. It's not God, it's not even a being, for pity's sake. It doesn't have a free will to answer for. It's just a collection of people, working."

So what do I mean by "collective," "company" and the other terms I'm throwing about?

Well, I'm basing my thoughts on how groups of people behave. For instance, once a group of people is organized enough to have their own budget, things change. One automatic agenda item is the survival of the group.

So when I say "company," it can mean a business or a charity or a Government Agency or a school or a battalion or an opera company ...

When you need something from a company, it often involves asking Person A who relays the request to Person N whose job it is to point to Person H, who delegates it to Person R.

Overall, this can take from ten minutes to a work week to get done, assuming nobody's out on vacation.

Person R does the job and word of it is transmitted back to you.

(I'm being purposefully vague about that last bit for a reason.)

This is sort of the degenerate case of this argument, the reductio ad absurdum, the Adam Sandler argument, if you will ...

A company can't say anything starting with "I am going to" because it's more than one person. If there is some such thing as a corporate will, it is not the same thing as the sum or amalgam of the wills of the individuals within the corporation.

Y'know, the place stuff gets bought and sold.

Some people say it's everywhere.

Doesn't that cheer you up immeasurably?

"Show me a man who says he can live without bread, and I'll show you a man who's a liar and in debt." --Ray Davies

Is there any remote corner of your life that isn't touched by money? Why haven't you sold it? Integrity ... or just a lack of buyers?

It's an understandable attitude for entry-level, minimum-wage people, but what about when it's your boss or the tech support dude for your favorite iron lung?

Is a slacker attitude all that welcome when it's coming from people who control your life?

Plus, there's the paranoid notion that the person is using a slacker attitude to cover a real intention ...

There are some things any group of people large enough to have its own budget can't do.

Mind you, they CAN and do act in their own self-interest, but a collective being's "self" is different from a person's.

Think about it: How do groups of people make decisions? What priorities are declared? What priorities are created but not voiced aloud?

Remember, with first-person pronouns, it's important to consider who's talking.

Bill Gates?

If so, that "My Computer" label on the icon means he's laying claim to your desktop.

If it were YOU talking, you'd call it "You."

Or, because you're treating the computer as another entity, the icon's label should be "Your Computer" or "Me."

When a collective entity speaks, the language means things different from when individuals speak. For instance, the pronouns mean different things.

To make matters even trickier, the person attempting to speak for the company often gets it wrong.

But how do you cope when your own bosses already have that attitude? If you take an issue up with outsiders, it looks like treason, even when the outsiders are the ones who are supposed to deal with the issue.

That's the 57.3 Euro question!

Perhaps one solution is to set the flunky off, making a change you want in the company? (This is just theory.)

Perhaps one can reverse-engineer some of these principles?

By the mythology of the Market, this is meant to be the ultimate thrill of human existence, the orgasm in the person/Market interface. After a bit of stroking, some liquid assets get spurted from one to the other so that the Market can give birth to some product.

Sure, usually the product exists prior to the transaction, but the Market likes to press the sexual analogy. In response, I would venture to say that we then have the right to deal with invitations to transact in the same way we deal with sexual advances.

Remember in the movie The Road Warrior, how the bad guys strapped hostages onto the front of one of their battle vehicles, so when it ran into something, the hostages were the ones getting squished?

That's the position a company puts individual telemarketers in. The assumption is that by putting a human in front, people on the other end will be forced to be polite.

That's a fallacy. We have no obligation to be nice to telemarketers. They've blown it by abusing us, and they'll never get it back.

Back in the late 1950s, they had crop problems in China. But each local manager's goal was to have some surplus. So each of them reported success, despite the realities. Then the Chinese Government told them to send in their surplus, for some noble-sounding program or other. That meant the grain-growing areas had nothing to feed themselves. The death toll from this was about 30 million.

It used to be a notoriously MS-DOS attitude, that the software vendor would write intrusive (and often stupid) install routines to mess with the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files of customer computers.

Mac software was usually more respectful --it asked first, and it explained what it was going to attempt.

This wasn't always true, but it seemed to be that way, a basic cultural difference.

Q: What's a popular method to feign being an individual?

A: You're soaking in it!

Q: Huh?

A: The Question and Answer format. It pretends to be a two person conversation.

Q: Wow, that's really perceptive! Are the people who use this all evil?

A: Not necessarily. When assembling documentation, it's not easy explaining things. This is an out for the lazy writer.

There are things that individuals owe to other individuals within their relationships that individuals don't owe to companies.

For instance, while it's a betrayal of a friendship or family relation to rat out a person for some minor infraction, a company can't expect this sort of slack. After all, they don't give slack, so they haven't earned slack.

"Dilbert" reflects the cubicle worker's update to the military's N.C.O. attitude that "we" are the ones who truly understand the job, and the management/officers are fools.

The notion is that to get the job done, we have to become an outlaw from management and the rest of the company. Conversely, they become outcasts as far as we're concerned.

One of the most basic appeals in marketing is the claim that the product can give you greater freedom.

Y'know, "Make your own road" (which really should be for bulldozers and asphalt layers) and stuff like that.

Ads try to tell us that freedom is for the exceptional --and you're exceptional. May I remind you that freedom is for everybody?

No, I'm not fooling myself into thinking this is some great new revelation. It's obvious stuff.

But I haven't seen it written down before. So that's what I'm doing, to see where it leads me.

If this is instructional at all, that's a reflection on how lame and useless mainstream tutorials can be.

This is a bit specific.

A company can't admit a management fad is over, unless some major change in personnel at the top has happened.

So, to cite a famous fictitious example, the only way you know you've stopped fighting Eurasia is when they start the marketing for the battle with Eastasia.

The Web is a good place to seek out fellow-minded people and share data. There are users groups and victim support groups and groups mobilizing action.

cool (or whatever means "cool" these days)

gnarly
diss
dude
attitude (in the slang sense)

A company rep can express regret, but a company can't convincingly express sorrow.

About the name ... If you see this page and say, "Hey, I titled something of mine, 'Conversations With Technocracy'," yeah, I went to high school with you.

And it's been a quarter century and I haven't seen anything from you in the real world.

by just john
Copyright 2000

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