Since the last post, I’ve spent a week or so working on handling things that I had been avoiding. A lot of stuff was handled…and a lot of that promptly became problems again. Taking one step forward does not mean resolving a problem, most of the time, because many of our systems are designed to avoid resolving problems.
Remember POSIWID?
As in, the purpose of a system is what it does?
Example. One of the tasks I’d been avoiding was trying to start an account at a new bank (primary task). I submitted my documents and promptly got declined.
Huh?
There was no real reason to do so.
So I phoned (secondary task) to find out what had happened. The person on the other end of the phone reviewed the documents, said that part of one document had been cut off, and that everything was fine, they would reroute the application back through the system, even though they didn’t do so normally—normally they’d ask that the potential client restart the application process (which takes approximately 20 minutes to complete, due to lengthy verification steps).
Great. I hung up.
A day later, I saw that I’d missed a call from the bank while I was doing something else. I called back (secondary task #2) to see what they wanted (they didn’t leave a message). After half an hour with no estimated wait time and no human interaction, I hung up.
Then I emailed (secondary task #3) the address that was left in one of the bank’s emails for “if you have further questions.” That was Wednesday; it’s Friday today and I don’t have an answer.
What did the system do?
Avoid handling my issue, so that I could open a bank account.
Opening a bank account with a bank is, presumably, profitable for the bank, even at my level of financial transaction. It seems like they declined me based on an automated system of some sort, and then didn’t really have processes in place to handle anyone who called back to find out what happened.
I’ll give ’em a couple of days to resolve things on their ends, call again (secondary task #4), and then ditch the bank if they don’t respond again. I’ll have to start the process all over (secondary task #5) with another bank, though, which is annoying.
If they don’t have a system in place to handle basic issues like this, what happens when there’s a serious problem?
The purpose of their system is to weed out customers who have any kind of issue, whether it’s related to banking or not. If you have no issues, great! They’re a great bank. At least hypothetically.
Was the customer service rep an asshole? He seemed puzzled by the rejection, worked to find out the cause (apparently it was something he had to take several extra steps to find out), and went up his chain to try to save me some effort.
That doesn’t mean that the system wasn’t designed to reject me over a non-substantive issue.
Rejecting someone over non-substantive issues is an asshole move. It prioritizes short-term gains (weeding out all but the most ideal customers) over long-term profit—in a way that costs extra time and money for everyone involved.
If the system had been set up to automatically email me for a clearer copy of the document instead of automatically rejecting me, I wouldn’t have called customer service for help. And the rep could have helped an actual customer with an actual problem.
This is a minor example; I’m not unique in experiencing stuff like this and I’m sure you can think of a hundred different similar things that have happened to you, some of them minor and some of them with possibly fatal consequences.
I’m not exaggerating; the news story from yesterday was of a blind man that fucking ICE left at a coffee shop in a blizzard instead of dropping off at home after his arrest and release; the blind man froze to death and the ICE rep was like, “What? We were just following procedures.”
POSIWID.
The people who designed the bank system that rejected me automatically for non-substantive reasons either did so on purpose or had values that made them blind to the invisible costs caused by their automation choices.
This bank has been around for a while; the customer service rep sounded familiar with the system (and thus the system was not brand new). He told me what the usual procedure was: to tell the potential customer to re-apply. Not a new system.
The bank had left that system in place.
According to POSIWID, part of the purpose of the system is to create invisible costs for the customer service reps and potential customers. I had a particularly service-minded customer service rep, but he was not following his usual procedures.
It is reasonable to assume that the bank wants me to stop complaining and go away, and has trained their customer service reps to discourage people in person when an automatic decline email is insufficient.
The invisible costs that get inflicted on anyone who resists the automated system are not considered enough of an issue by the bank to change the system.
It’s a minor issue for me.
But it’s the same kind of technique that was used to refuse to lend black people money to buy houses or start businesses. It’s the same kind of technique that’s being use now to arrest everyone who might be a problem re: immigration status (including protesters). That blind man’s death was intended.
POSIWID.
…
So how do we change systems like that?
Here’s a reasonable starting point: if you’re overwhelmed, try to find one thing you’re avoiding, take a step toward resolving it, then stop and think about how that went.
—This is not the same thing as saying, “Just break things down into small steps and do them one thing at a time.”
Fuck that noise.
It’s advice that is soooo close that it sounds reasonable. But it’s not.
Let’s say you’re a positive, upbeat person who has their shit more or less together. When you feel like you have a lot of tasks on your plate, you do reasonable things: ask for help, delegate tasks, say no, make time for yourself to rest (because everyone needs to put their oxygen mask on first!), and then do things one step at a time.
The invisible work of being a positive person, getting your shit together, asking for help, delegating tasks, saying no, and making time for yourself aren’t part of the advice, though. Only do things one step at a time.
Give that advice to someone who is overwhelmed or depressed. See how well it works. It doesn’t. It’s fucking upsetting and depressing to be told that all you need to do is to do things one step at a time.
POSIWID.
The advice is either intentionally designed to hurt people, or the person giving it has values that make them blind to the invisible costs of following that advice.
To be fair, we all do shit like this. There’s a difference between being an asshole and being fucking ignorant inside an asshole system. Some of us are assholes; all of us are embedded inside assholes systems, more systems than we can count, too, because they keep fucking evolving and splitting in order to conceal themselves, and the overall effect is both insidious and fucking overwhelming.
The POSIWID of telling someone to do things one step at a time is to get them to stop complaining.
And go away.
So let’s not focus on the do things one step at a time part.
This is different:
- Find one thing you’ve been avoiding.
- Take a small step toward resolving it.
- Then stop and think about how that went.
Here’s the reasoning behind that plan:
Problems of overwhelm aren’t about the things that seem like they’re overwhelming you.
This is harder to see in one’s own situation than it is in other people’s. I’m sure you know someone who is constantly overwhelmed yet whose situation could be quickly fixed by walking away from the situation or just setting some fucking boundaries or standards and sticking to them.
The hard part is accepting that the person who needs to set some fucking boundaries or standards is you.
Especially if you’re depressed, being emotionally and/or physically abused, or neurodivergent. (Or an asshole!)
If you are overwhelmed, there is likely something going on behind that overwhelm.—No, scratch that, there are likely several categories of things going on behind that overwhelm.
1. You’re embedded in asshole systems. Like patriarchy, mercantile capitalism, and/or Fakesbook.
2. You’re embedded in immediate asshole relationships. Your family. Your job. Volunteering. Clubs. Social media groups.
3. You’re avoiding something (whether or not you’re an asshole!).
Here’s something I’ve been hinting at, but let’s spell it out: if you’re gonna mitigate an asshole in some way, start with yourself.
Cleaning up your own shit simplifies things immensely.
Last night, my daughter trashed the damn kitchen and didn’t clean up after herself. At all. I grumped around, avoided talking to her about it, tried and failed to do so…and then stopped myself and said, “I should talk to her about this, why am I resisting this?!?”
Oh yeah. It’s because we agreed that if she cooked, I would clean up after her—she’s doing most of the cooking, after all.
Duh.
Me being grumpy wasn’t about her. It was about me not wanting to do the dishes, and creating some kind of internal narrative where doing the dishes was my daughter’s job instead of mine.
I loaded the dishwasher, set pans to soak, and went to bed without starting a useless fucking fight. I mitigated. I was tired and grumpy and overwhelmed and looking for a way to shift that feeling away from being dissatisfied with myself and onto someone else.
And, if I had gone through with it, that would have been an asshole move, and after I’d calmed down I would have been ashamed of myself.
Instead:
- I found the thing I was avoiding.
- I tried to take one small step to resolve that (but fought against doing it).
- I stopped and thought about it and discovered I was at fault.
This isn’t always how it goes. It depends on the situation. I have had to have unpleasant conversations with her about things that were her fault. And, in the long run, those conversations have been valuable—but first I tried to avoid them, because they were unpleasant.
The POSIWID of cheap advice is to get you to go away, at the cost of miring you deeper into depression and other problems.
The POSIWID of taking a hard look at what you’re avoiding is to take responsibility for yourself and how you interact with others.
Start with yourself.
But remember the thing about the bank.
You can find the Asshole Mitigation Plan series outline here.
