I ordered a new laptop today
I know I know... finally!!
Before my order I checked if it’s actually available. Because I want to book a flight to Thailand and I need a working laptop there. Yes it was. Great.
I wanted to pick it up at the Apple Store tomorrow, but I found out I could even pick it up today, if I wanted to. Wow.
So I entered my order and just before I hit the Submit button I noticed that the availability date had changed to the 24th of January. What??
I went through the process twice again, to make sure I hadn’t made a mistake.
Then I chatted with support.
I found out that just because I had asked for an English keyboard, there would be a two week delay.
“Whenever you ask for changes from the standard version, it delays things.” Great…
Why hadn’t I been asked for the specifications in the beginning, when I was checking the availability?? I really didn’t expect Apple to waste their customers' time like that. This is a simple query, you don't even need a blockchain for that! IKEA can do it, why can't Apple?
So I placed my order and then went on to do other things.
Problems
Suddenly I had a missed call from an Irish number. Who’s calling me from Ireland??
Then I found an email from Apple, with the subject “Please call back urgently re your order!” Ah, a call center in Dublin of course. I used to work in one of those aaaages ago.
The email said, “We will put your order on hold for 6 days and if we don’t hear from you, we will cancel it.”
What?? What’s happening?
So I dropped everything and called back immediately.
The guy said,
“Oh yeah, I just need to confirm some details."
"Okay..."
"What’s the delivery address you want to have this sent to?"
I told him. I mean, it must have been right there on his screen, but maybe that's how he verified that I was me before he would solve the big problem with me.
"What’s the email address you used?"
"Excuse me, but why are you asking me that?"
"Oh, we just need to double check to make sure that everything is OK before we ship."
"So there is no problem?"
"Problem? No, we're just reconfirming your data."
“Are you serious? Your email sounds alarming and urgent, like something went wrong. And you’re asking me all the details that I just gave you in my order? Submitted through my actual Apple ID??”
I felt like double checking him now, because this just seemed so odd... I told him what a waste of time they’re causing for their customers.
Of course he’s heard it all before.
Yaadeyaaadeyaaa... And of course he's just doing his job. I know exactly what that job feels like. Though in hindsight, I had some actual problems to solve back then, so there was at least a tiny amount of creativity involved.
But it occurred to me how much money Apple must spend on running call centers worldwide to pay bored people to call busy people to waste their time.
None of my interactions had been necessary. Both of them could have been automated.
It's amazing when you think about just how many people there are in the world, who just "double check things” all day. Imagine how much time and money could be (will be) saved by automating them. 80% of my previous jobs, when I was still employed, were spent on double checking information. And those were not even call center jobs.
I’ll be so glad when the whole world runs on the blockchain and nobody has to deal with any double checking anymore. No more middle men. No more re-shuffling information. No more having to sit at a desk for 8 or more hours a day just to be there.
No more call centers!
And don't be scared about potentially losing your job. The blockchain and the cryptospace will provide us so many opportunities to earn an income in way more enjoyable ways. Just look at Steemit.
(Don't mistake this for a rant please. I never rant. This is just three gifs with some additional explanation.)