Lowered Expectations

We are brought up mostly to see and think of the best in other human beings. My expectations on this has made me experience good encounters, but not entirely. In the current turn of the contemporary society and world, I now begin to mindfully lower my expectations in how people, community, society, government, authorities and well funded powers behave - this is especially towards the disenfranchised, the public and those who do not count in the larger scheme of things. Concurrently running along the seeming path to more meanness is the strong observations of individuals, businesses, politicians and organisations increasing self centredness. Commerce may have led the way, in the messages of only ensuring their own well being and having less concerns about the customer who buys and brings in the cash flow. Many large corporates have people at the top who do not even appreciate or understand the view points and experience of customers in the various stages in the journey of buying from such businesses. The falling emphasis in less human contact and rising use of device screen methods to sell or service has added to the lost art of consideration, civility and character when dealing with each other. In the process of dealing with residents, consumers and others who are the linchpin of how an economy works, the top down approach adopted by more and more operators seem to be to avoid meeting with them, send mass messages online, reduce communication access and enhance the importance of investors and highly paid management. In the process, such powers that are and can be, dehumanise the majority in human societal structures. This is especially evident when institutions and corporates dominate the market in an overwhelming manner, for example in New Zealand and Australia, with less competition and choice. Taking customers ( in the broadest sense of the word) for granted looks like the forte and rationale of increasingly more modern society structures, modus operandi and institutions. Why so? Because they can do so. So that is why it is significant that many people ( and not just me aha) are lowering our expectations. And that is critical - by lowering our expectations, we also begin to lose our attachment to such bodies. Do we really need to interact or buy from bad service and product providers? There in lies a potential solution. By decreasing our attachment to many useless things, irrelevant humans, aggressive businesses and impertinent structures, we allow our energies, time and hard earned monies go to more worthwhile causes and activities that truly do enrich our soul and inner joy. Life is a journey of change. When we change our expectations and attachment, we do not absorb the negative energy from parties who just want to take advantage of us - and who are not worth our energy to bother about. And the bottom line I must say, is that it is more meaningful and rewardinv to raise expectations of our own selves - not for the sake of others, but in our own personal journey. #yongkevthoughts

No Point to Visit A Physical Store

 These days, some Australian Corporates which operate huge chains of supermarkets, department stores and providers of other home goods, do provide a very different atmosphere for customers.

Customers visiting their stores or outlets are filmed on video or on other forms of image.

Customers in physical stores are strongly encouraged to self check out.

Customers taking the effort to visit such stores are increasingly looked upon by management as growing risks of theft, even when most of us do not deserve to be treated as such.

Customers visiting stores used to take the experience as a destressor or as a place to socialise.   We are very wrong to think so these days.

More variety of stock can be found available on line than on physical shelves.

Online services can offer delivery of heavy items better than for customers to carry such goods themselves.

Customers increasingly can no longer meet the same staff members at retail stores.

There can be no point in phoning up a store for help as they may lack staffing and no human being is assigned at work to attend to your phone call.

#yongkevthoughts

The On Screen Electronic Divide

 It has been like trampling through the jungle.

Accounts, apps, email addresses, websites and more cry out for your passwords.   Some insist on a specific set of characters, caps, punctuation and numbers.  The more careful entities do a two factor authentication.   Airlines and banks provide electronic fingermark access.  Others send a one time use six digit pin to your nominated mobile telephone number.

And yet the fraudsters and scammers are lurking in the bush.

Out in the wild world are people using online love lures.  Victims usually have not met their scam better half in person face to face - and depend on messages, electronic photos and online voices.  I am confused, don't you think you want to feel a budding lover in the flesh first in any serious relationship?

There may be a rising tendency for on screen commercial transactions to avoid meeting the other side.  We are not interested to meet the cook in our food deliveries.  We get our payments from human beings we are not interested to know.   So many consumers only interact with the middle broker or deliverer - or maybe not.  Even parcels are just left at your nominated place and the deliverer simply takes a photograph of where he or she left it.

House recipients put up front door cameras with apps on phones.   Gone are the days that we get a chance to chat with service people.   Is it because human beings are so entangled with other things that they cannot wait for a delivery?   Yet we patiently wait for the arrival of the plumber, electrician, gardener and tradie.

There used to be someone home to receive things.   Now they can go to lockers in shopping centres.  Oh yes, the traditional local post office is gone.   Fancy cafes are more popular in suburbs - and everyone perhaps goes there on  a regular basis more than any other place.  Cafes can play another role as collection centres, more than newsagents.  

Online commerce has spiked to such proportions that the cardboard and materials used to pack parcels are becoming a menacing disposal matter. 
Some deliveries still insist on a signature by the recipient - and the seller just wants any form of mark, not a proper personalised signature, as proof of receipt.

How do we get satisfied that we are actually interacting with kosher and authentic other parties online?

As online consumers, we are always challenged that we are not robots.   We hardly get to authenticate parties on the other side of the electronic interface.   It truly feels like a one sided way of we always having to prove ourselves in an electronic transaction.

#yongkevthoughts