Issue 10: Hello from the other side
Convenience, communication and customer experience
Hello from Berlin, where in the face of both a broken dryer and a country where Sunday rest is taken seriously, I’m surrounded by socks, underwear and shirts strewn on every free surface of this studio apartment in the hopes that they dry without that mildew smell of a college freshman unfamiliar with laundry.
I hear that it’s highly unusual for a building to even allow laundry to be done on a Sunday. Which brings me to a series of old tweets and memes I’m seeing get reshared…
It’s unusual timing, really, for someone who hasn’t been formally employed since April 9. This is the most time I’ve ever taken without some sort of income since I was 14 years old - between summer jobs, full-time school, babysitting etc. and though it hasn’t exactly been work free (emigrating, finding an apartment, clearing a house for renters, etc. is no joke) I can feel that classic urge to be productive, to earn, tearing at every fiber of my being. Who are we if we are not working? Who are we at rest? Why are all these people playing with their children at the park before 5 p.m. on a weekday?
These are questions likely familiar to any American while adjusting to a country where nothing seems or feels easy (except for public transportation). The grocery store. Laundry. Getting cat food. Going to the store. These are all things that were once easy, and now they stupidly take double the time and brainpower in order to untangle the rules.
In expat Facebook groups and blogs, I see a lot of gripe about the loss of convenience. A derision towards Sunday closures and a lamentation for quick service. I would like to think that we could have both - and communications is key to that. Setting and managing societal expectations is something possible after our great big reset. No, not everything needs to be open 24 hours. No, not everything needs to cost less than $30. There is a human and societal cost to convenience and customer-orientation - just read Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century. Perhaps it is too easy to buy into every little trapping of consumerism thinking it is intertwined with survival. Maybe it’s the other way around.
One of my favorite descriptions of communications is that the craft is the art of getting people to say yes, every single time. But what isn’t included in that description is the cost of those millions of yeses, and the slippery slope those permissions can lead to.
May we all understand the cost of convenience - and be brave enough to set boundaries when we can. I hope that all of you are setting safe and responsible travel plans to use all that PTO you’ve amassed; after all, they’re getting the planes out and ready for you (NPR).
To rest, relaxation, and becoming a better professional and person for it.
Interesting roles for communicators
Samsara, Communications manager
TBWA\Chiat Day, Team coordinator
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America was so different in the 90's as a kid. I remember Sundays being "boring days" because everything was closed completely or closed at 5 or 6pm, at least in good old Bellevue, WA.