Our lives today have taken on many challenges of home and other types of repairs. YouTube videos are available on how to fix this or that, how to build this or that, do small projects on auto/appliance repairs, installations of things, etc., which have made our lives somewhat easier, and less expensive, but in this man’s opinion, we may be taking DIY way too far.

Often times, you go into a business and there’s a counter with a big sign overhead designating that as the Customer Service Department. In many ways, the VFTB, feels that customer service is really business serviced by customers.

I am a teacher. I’ve served in that capacity since 1975 as a substitute teacher, classroom teacher, and then substitute teacher once again. I was lucky. I got to teach in the same room where my students sat with their fellow students, able to talk to another person, interact with other people, work with other people, and solve problems and challenges with other people.

Even before COVID-19 hit us, there were already forms of remote learning, on-line college opportunities, distance learning, and more, some of which was very beneficial in sharing classes in more than one building and allowing small numbers of students from different schools be able to “attend” a class not offered in their school. On the flip side, some of those forms might have been/be seen as ways of dehumanizing students as they worked toward getting to where their life goal is/was waiting for them. COVID-19 forced schools to go to remote learning because of the health risks, and it was/is very effective to a degree, but in this person’s mind, it will never be as effective as being able to hear the lesson in person, interact in person, work with each other in person, and encourage each other in person. After COVID-19, some schools have chosen to stay with remote learning, for a variety of reasons, my in my opinion, and excuse my poor grammar, it just ain’t the same.

In my travels of schools, I had the opportunity to witness a group of wood shop students, band together and build an equipment shed for one of the athletic teams. Can’t figure out how they would have been able to do that via remote learning. Education is more than Reading, ‘Riting, and ‘Rithmetic. Education is learning how to work with others, how to exchange ideas with others, how to coexist with others, how to encourage others, how to talk to each other, counsel each other, pat each other on the back, celebrate with each other, and challenge each other. Those things are best done with the people doing them in the same room.

Unfortunately, businesses have taken remote technology and replaced Customer Service with it. We go into some restaurants and have to order our food remotely. We go into some stores and have to self- checkout. I was in a large-scale supermarket and visited the Bakery Department wanting to order a cake for a dinner I was helping with, and I was told they didn’t take in-person orders, that I would have to do it on my mobile device. As stated earlier, I have no problem with do-it-yourself aided videos, so I can save money and earn a little self-esteem when I think I did a good job. In none of these “self” tasks where I have to do my shopping, have I ever saved money, but the business has, by not having to hire enough staff to do those things that fall under that big sign labeled “Customer Service.” In one way it’s correct because the Customer is doing the serving. Maybe the sign should read, “Customer Serve Thyself.”

Question, If I’m doing the work of the stores where I shop, and I get hurt in the store, do I qualify for Workman’s Compensation? Question – If I am doing the work of an employee of that store, should I, by law, receive compensation for my labor? Last I looked, I’ve received no remuneration for my work, no discount, be it an employment discount, or some type of salary/wage, so why can the stores claim, or boast, or advertise of their Customer Service Department, and making it look like they are there to do things for the customers, when it’s really the customers who are serving the store?

Technology, as good as it is for many, is also very bad for many, many things. One, as said before, it is dehumanizing so much in our lives. It also has presented many more ways to invade others privacy, steam from them, like reeking havoc in so many people’s lives through hacking, identity theft, and other crimes.

As much as some say technology is a blessing, and in many ways, I feel that way, as I do use technology and it does help me. It’s also, though, a curse, in other ways too, as it can take people away from one another, in situations where people need to be doing things together, and also in making customers do the work of businesses without payment or benefit.

There are things I don’t want to, not should I have to do myself, and I’m tired of being forced to do it by places who advertise customer service the wrong way.