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25 Responses to “Take a Number, Wait Your F*cking Turn”
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This is good news for arrogant retards, sad for the rest of us.
Maybe I am in a contrarian mood, but while this video is certainly funny, it doesn’t resonate with me. I have been to DMV’s (which are state run, btw, not national which hampers the analogy a bit) in 4 states in the last 15 years and the only locations that come even close to the stereotype is Maryland and that is only if you are stupid enough to go to the Glen Burnie or Mondawmin Mall locations. Most of what you need to do can be done at smaller, retail outlets and even on ATM like self-serve machines. While there are certainly exceptions, most Post Offices are fine experiences as was the 10 minutes I spent filing my taxes online yesterday.
Also, when I think of all the stupid bullshit I have gone through in my life in terms of bureaucracy, most of it has been at private companies. Fed Ex, UPS, the old 1st National Bank of Maryland, and even CitiBank in the 90’s have all sent me into wild rants due to their paradoxical policies and ridiculous paperwork requirements.
I’m not saying federal bureaucracies are all well run. I used to work for the Federal Government I certainly know better. But the stereotype of the poorly run DMV where people languish in line for hours just hasn’t been my experience in the last 15 years or so.
They would have been better off comparing a nationalized CitiBank with immigration policies, security checks in airports, and getting a passport. Now those are areas the Federal bureaucracy blows chunks.
Adolphus come on down to Fayetteville NC and experience the joy of going to the one, and only licensing location in a city serving 200,000 people. If you can get through in less then 6 hours I’ll pay for your trip, hotel, food, beer, hookers, maryjane, porno PPV, and license.
Adolphus–I think you’re pretty much correct here. I have the same complaints regarding the arrogant retards at my local grocery store. And the problem with the post office, is not its inefficiency(at least in terms of customer service), but rather the fact that it will continue to exist no matter how irrelevant it becomes. But, down with nationalization of banks, rah, rah, rah!
It does feel like a logical disconnect when the post directly below this one is mocking investment by a government organisation in customer service training while in this post mocking the presumed arrogance of government organisations in not giving a damn how they serve their customers.
Both of those positions don’t really sit well together unless you want government organisations to treat people as well as private sector companies do without any of the training.
@2 I’m going to pretty much agree with you. BUT I think my worst encounters are with “regulated” monopolies, and business licensing. Comcast and Pepco can both Eat A Bag of Dicks. Although the licensing of “simple” businesses and their employees can be a maze of paperwork and arbitrary line standing.
Part of the reason I moved was to get Direct TV and avoid Pepco and their “estimated” charges. Fuckers.
I find this hilarious – largely because I work in a customer-facing position in a totally non-nationalized (and non-US) bank, and I hear pretty much the same complaints about all of it: lines and wait times, poor online service, arrogant (or ignorant, or slow) employees, wrong information being provided to customers (especially by the telephone reps, who love to send people in to the branches for things that they could have dealt with perfectly easily).
People seem to complain about banks regardless of who owns them.
CAN ANYONE point me in the direction of what the hell the success metrics are for TARP and the bank bailouts?
Because last time I personally spent US$1 trillion I made sure I defined what the hell I expected to get in return. And that’s how I got my fancy title as a Prince of Nigeria.
Oh…the government is an unfair competitor and “fair” competition is pretty much the only way you get good customer service. That and Americans have crappy customer service because Americans deserve (put up with) crappy customer service.
Will the gubment make sure CitiBank gets some decent telephone reps who don’t sound like they just learned English last week?
If so I may have to re-think my position on the nationalization of banks.
The only negative experiences I had with the DMV was when I lived in VA, and even then it was only a couple of times.
The post office, eh, it’s 50-50, my current one sucks pretty badly, but in other areas I’ve lived they were fine.
I think I agree with Dakota. Those de facto monopolized businesses give you the worst of both worlds. All the stereotypical inefficiency of a government agency, but without even the recourse to go to anyone for real redress.
As someone who has had to transact business at both Massachusetts and Rhode Island DMVs in the last few months, I can assure you Adolphus that this commercial doesn’t even go far enough describing how awful it is. I have never waited LESS than an hour and a half to do anything at a DMV, and there was no one available who could answer any question whatsoever until I reached the actual teller.
As a former Citibank customer I’m having trouble identifying what the makers of the video think is going to change about Citibank’s customer service under nationalization.
@Mack#3: You may be correct. So when Fayatteville, NC takes over my bank I’ll move my money.
@Bernard#5: I noticed this disconnect too and began writing about it, but noticed I had gone on long enough. You really can’t have it both ways. Either complain about the customer service at government run things or complain about them spending money to have good customer service. Of course we could argue about whether the government SHOULD run stuff, but that’s beside the issue. If the government is going to run stuff that directly serves the public, it should do so efficiently and with a service ethic in its staff. If they have to hire an outside consultant so be it, assuming the contracting is done ethically and transparently.
@Dakota#6 YES. Government supported monopolies are the worst. There is just no accountability. We can’t go somewhere else and we cannot vote them out of office. Utilities yes, but even smaller services. I remember when there was one water taxi in Baltimore and it sucked. The city was forced to open its piers to competition and suddenly the old operation discovered they could run on time if they had to.
I guess I should have mentioned this doesn’t mean I support nationalization of banks. It’s just this particular complaint doesn’t resonate with me and at worst may even serve as a distraction from some of the more important issues related to nationalization. For example:es the government even have the power to do so.
Oh and Boyd. I don’t think Americans have crappy customer service. if what you are saying is customer service in America as measured by some statistic which I never heard about is worse in the US compared to other countries. There are pockets where bad customer service festers like almost everything at the airport and utilities, but by and large the world learns its good customer service from American companies like Disney. You may put up with bad customer service, but I don’t.
[...] (HT: The Agitator) [...]
Personally – I didn’t really find the video all that funny. And not because there may or may not be truth to it. Its just not funny period.
And regards to the DMV – I’ve been to the DMV twice in Minnesota in just the last year and I’ve maybe a grand total of 20 minutes in line and getting my requests fulfilled (replacement license and tabs) so I have a hard time buying into the DMV horror stories. How ’bout not going during lunchtime?
I thought that was really well done. The required drug test was great.
@Bernard#5 & Adolphus#13: Back to libertarian school for both of you. Your disconnect comes from a tradeoff which doesn’t exist in the competitive market. To criticize both the horrible service offered by such monopolies and the ridiculous idea that taxpayers’ money should be spent improving that service is consistent when competition would take care of both.
I started to write a list on anecdotes, but they really don’t highlight the issue. The point, ultimately, is that government operations will tend to be less focused on keeping customers happy because no one gets fired if the customer leaves unhappy. And, conversely, no one gets a raise because business blooms when customers recommend that agency to their friends. If some clerk is jerking you around and you call the manager, so what? He isn’t going to lose you as a customer because you are forced to deal with his agency. And, frankly, he doesn’t care if you don’t come back, anyway.
I don’t know what will happen at Citibank, but I feel pretty sure it won’t work in my favor when they learn that their survival depends more on keeping politicians happy than on keeping me happy.
We already have a nationalized banking system: the Federal Reserve. Why should we care if the front line banks become nationalized?
Christian McClellan, disputing specific arguments with general ideology is never adequate. It doesn’t explain anything to anyone who doesn’t already agree with you.
If ‘libertarian school’ taught you to sidestep any discussion with the words ‘competition will fix that’ then I’m glad I bunked those classes.
I don’t like to have to caveat my arguments with the apparently obligatory ‘government intervention is a giant waste of money that will rapidly make things worse’ because it’s not relevent to this particular discussion.
The key question appears to be whether government owned services should or shouldn’t care about customer experience. I have no idea the answer, but I do know that you can’t logically have it both ways.
If I’ve missed the point and the actual purpose of the comment thread is to parrot textbook libertarian ideology and dress down naysayers then you have my apologies.
#5, There is no disconnect. Balko wasn’t complaining that state-run stores spend money on improving customer service, he was (rightly or wrongly) highlighting what he saw as the silliness of state run liquor stores spending a lot of money on consultants to improve customer service long after private venders would have fixed any problems with customer service on their own (again, maybe he’s wrong, but, well, that was his point, right or wrong).
Reading comprehension. It’s a good thing.
My brother works for CitiBank. A couple of years ago he shared an in-house joke with me regarding the “new” CitiBank slogan:
“…CitiBank…the “H” is silent”.
JOR, but it’s already been pointed out by others that private vendors frequently hire consultants to improve their customer service offering. I’m sure I can find you dozens of examples if you haven’t seen any examples. That clearly demonstrates that a) they do periodically have problems and b) they do periodically use outside resources to fix them. How does that differ from what is happening here?
I also don’t see how any effort to improve customer service sits logically with the idea in this video that government run organisations don’t care about customer service.
I may be in danger of protesting too much here, as I’m no fan of government involvement in business, but we need to use better examples than these of government ineffectiveness or people less sympathetic to libertarian causes will find this stuff very easy to dismiss.
Hmmmm. The banks that issued my credit cards must have been nationalized some time ago, because that’s pretty much what my “account management associates” tell me whenever I have to talk to them on the phone now.