We
seniors of this still-new 21st century are old enough
to remember the good old days, when you were able to
rely on tools that worked and call on real-life people
whenever you needed help.
Those days may be slipping away now. Increasingly, coping with today’s
complicated world may hinge on how smoothly you can adapt to the various technological
gizmos that are constantly popping up wherever you go.
One example that comes immediately to mind is the new digital camera technology,
currently the sweetheart of shutter buffs the world over. I became a fan myself
a few months ago, after our daughter bought one for my wife as a birthday present.
I’ve been using it a lot more than my wife; it takes great pictures without
film and stores the photos inside the camera.
But last week, I learned there can be a downside to digital cameras. When you
go to the drug store to develop your pictures, you have to deal with a cumbersome
machine that takes you through the developmental process step by step.
A friendly clerk got me started on the 60 photos we had taken on our recently
completed Alaska cruise. But after returning home, there were more than 100 pictures
in the packet, including all shots taken and saved on the camera’s “memory
stick” since the start of the year. The computer mindlessly included these
with our order.
Back at the drug store again, the clerk cheerfully gave me a credit for the unwanted
photos without speculating where I might have gone awry. “Forget it,” he
said. “This is only a machine. You can’t argue with it.”
But I couldn’t forget it. I probably had unknowingly made the mistake myself
while punching the various buttons required to bring the process to its conclusion.
The perils that lurk everywhere as you navigate the waters of today’s cyber-world
may be acceptable to most. But they’re a real hazard to older folks who
remember the times when personal service was the standard of excellence for most
things you bought and used.
I discussed this subject last week with a friend, Mel Bisgay, a 79-year-old East
Sacramento resident and retired manager for McDonnell-Douglas who now fills his
spare time as a legislative advocate for the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
“This generation is just too quick to make changes,” he said. “I
wonder sometimes if changes are just made to get people stirred up.”
Technological changes are made, he added, even when they’re not especially
needed. “Industry is looking at the bottom line,” he said. “It
saves money when they get you to talk to a machine rather than actual people.”
Not long ago, I was astonished to find that Home Depot — a huge home improvement
conglomerate that I patronize only occasionally these days — had replaced
its checkout clerks with machines similar to the devices used for developing
digital camera photos.
As I was trying to complete the purchase of a stepladder, I was stumped by the
new computer station and finally had to wait for a clerk to show me what to do.
Slinking off like a complete idiot, I’ve avoided Home Depot ever since
and switched my business to the neighborhood hardware store where people accept
my cash or credit with the warmth of their hands.
A more recent bout with the new technology came when we took an early-summer
cruise to Alaska, beginning in Vancouver — where we were to rendezvous
for a few days with our daughter and son-in-law — and ending in Anchorage.
As part of the cruise package, we would fly back from Anchorage to Vancouver,
then home to Sacramento.
We were startled when we finally read the itineraries for the homeward flights.
We would leave Anchorage at 8 a.m., land in Seattle, change planes, and then
fly back north to Vancouver. Then we’d fly back to Seattle, and change
planes for the last time, to Sacramento at last! Total travel time: 15 hours,
with four flights and two passes through customs.
It seemed nutty to interrupt a flight home to bounce back and forth from Seattle
to Vancouver before continuing with our homeward course. So I took up my case
with our travel agent, with Princess Cruises, and by phone with Alaska Airlines.
It was all to no avail. It was too late to make changes, I was told. Seattle
is the hub, they said, and the flights have to touch down there. There would
be a substantial additional charge if any changes were made, even if they were
possible. I finally sighed and gave up.
But on cruise departure day, I decided to give it one last shot as we lined up
for our boarding passes at the Alaska Airlines ticket counter. I showed our itinerary
to a young clerk, and pointed to the return trip section showing us needlessly
flying from Seattle to Vancouver and back again. There seemed to be a glimmer
of understanding in his eyes. “This is ridiculous,” he finally said. “Let
me call my supervisor.”
“It’s crazy to have you go back and forth between Seattle and Vancouver
for absolutely no reason when we need the space on those flights,” the
supervisor said.
She went back to her office for a few minutes, and returned with a new itinerary
for our return flight — Anchorage to Seattle to Sacramento, and with no
penalty fee. In addition, with the Seattle-Vancouver tandem eliminated, we’d
get home six hours earlier, and we did.
The significance of the change was underscored before we got home. When we showed
up to check in for our flight home from Anchorage, we found there was no ticket
counter there. Instead, there were scattered computer stations where people could
punch in the ticket information and receive boarding passes with little human
intervention. There was an employee available to help people punch in, but that’s
all she would do. A complaint about my itinerary would not have received a hearing,
as it did in Sacramento.
Thank heaven, I thought, Sacramento still has real people at its airline ticket
counters who can listen and act on complaints that have obvious merit. But how
long will it be, I wondered, before the computers take over, and the people will
be gone?
As my friend Mel Bisgay put it, “industry wants to save money. It’s
the bottom line. They don’t pay for YOUR time, so they don’t care
about it.”
