The Good Don’t Hide

At least, they do not disassociate themselves from their work. On the contrary, they sign their names, taking pride in the quality of their output. This is why true virtuosi seldom shy away from having their full names indelibly linked to their paintings, symphonies, novels, legislation, or scientific discoveries. Even the most introverted who guard their privacy and slink away from crowd or limelight will not hesitate to lay claim to their own work.

Contrast this tendency, now, with the institutionalized tendency to distance employees from their work product. What passes for today’s customer service may well epitomize this modern tendency. The person answering your call, perhaps from an offshore hotline or just as easily from across town, is increasingly unlikely to self-identify. At best, you may be able to cadge an employee number and first name out of the individual. What about an identifiable first and last name, however? Slim chance. If the customer service is particulary substandard, even minimal identifiers may be absent, with calls disconnected midstream as you get to the point of demanding identification in your effort to escalate to some form of higher authority. What is behind such anonymizing tendencies?

There are official, unofficial, and underlying motives, if one cares to explore them.

Officially, employers proclaim their concern for employee safety as a reason for insulating their minions from their customers. After all, the argument goes, there is no shortage of crazed, disgruntled masses out there, and it would appear uncaring to grant the latter the means of readily identifying employees whom they might target in a fit of rage.

Unofficially, particularly when outsourcing hotlines and customer service functions to India, China, the Philippines, or elsewhere, employers attempting to affect a local, down-home persona in marketing their wares cannot allow employees to fully identify themselves with foreign-sounding names that give the lie to such marketing deceptions. Thus, they assign American-sounding first names to their customer service employees, and so Suresh now becomes Steve when answering the phone.

Underlying motives may be harder to establish with certainty, but they may be inferred. If, unlike an artist who is proud of the painting, the customer service employees are under trained and mediocre or perfunctory in the discharge of their duties, can it be that their management knows that no one in the company is all the way dedicated to customer service? If so, then is it not easier to dodge accountability and diffuse blame in direct proportion to how hard it is to pin down exactly which employee said what to the dissatisfied customer?

Quality counts and magnetizes signatures to its canvas. Inferiority, however, craves anonymity and makes orphans of its output. This is also why the best and even the second best are easy to identify. In Olympic season, it is no challenge to note that gold and silver medals are awarded to specific contenders and proudly counted by the countries spawning their respective athletes. Who goes to any length to claim last place, however? Oh yes, that would be what’s-his-name from…wherever it was. The same kind of thinking and identification applies to assessing the quality of goods and services everywhere. The fully identified and identifiable may not always be the best, but the ones hiding under many veils of anonymity will invariably be racing for the bottom.

Per corollary, what may one infer when the good appear to be going to inordinate lengths to hide despite their superior output? Then they are hiding from something else altogether, whether from old sins, predators, or something that is haunting them from some sphere that is distinct from the competence in which we are observing them at their best. Everybody has lapses and something not to be proud of, even if they are the only ones who can still remember it.

-- Nick Catrantzos