The Face of Your Father

1. The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed

Only one book has ever grabbed my attention on the first line. That book, of course, being The Gunslinger. The line, unsurprisingly, is the one above. I read the whole series, and I can understand why people have mixed feelings. It’s a weird series, other King stories get mixed up in the weird world presented. But I remember it fondly.¹

What the hell am I talking about, and how did we get here? Well The Dark Tower series kinda mushes horror, spaghetti westerns, acid trip-ey 80’s sci-fi stuff, and Arthurian fantasy together. I haven’t really thought about it much in a while. I never got around to seeing the movie. I should get around to that, and then I should re-acquire/re-read the books.

But that’s not what we are here to talk about today. Not directly anyway. It’s the start of this little palaver though. Because I was contemplating the behaviors of companies recently. They have forgotten where the money comes from (customers) and who helps them get that money (employees). As a result, everything sucks now.

This thought dug up the wisdom of Roland’s ancestors:

“I do not aim with my hand; he who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I aim with my eye.

I do not shoot with my hand; he who shoots with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I shoot with my mind.

I do not kill with my gun; he who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father. I kill with my heart.”

Why this? Well it’s because Henry Ford is generally considered to be the father of the modern factory. And every company still thinks they are a factory, no matter what they do, or whether that model actually works for their industry.

Ford was also sued by the Dodge brothers once upon a time, and the courts ruled that company managers were required to act in the interest of the company and shareholders and not necessarily in the interest of society. I’m not a legal expert, and there’s a lot of back and forth about how many layers of chess may or may not have been played there.

It’s more widely accepted that Ford paid his workers well for the time. There’s a good chance that an amount of historical revisionism has happened there as well, there’s certainly some omissions about moral requirements for employees, but that’s not exactly what we’re here to talk about either. I’m not a lawyer or Ford scholar here. I mention it to get us to the next point.

For the sake of making the quote work, let’s assume Ford generally wanted to pay his people well to retain them, increase sales by placing car ownership within their means, and to be a more-or-less positive influence on society.

2. Talent

It’s in a company’s best interest to retain a skilled workforce, ideally one with good morale. Everyone understands this intrinsically. If you keep people around the tribal knowledge is strong and problems can be fixed before anyone not deeply familiar with the environment even notices they exist. As with all things, there’s room here for nuance and exceptions, but on average it’s a net win.

People that are happy, secure, competent, and experienced will make your business shine. They will also have a positive impact on customer satisfaction. Think of a time you have had the good fortune to work with one of these people. Think about how they knew exactly how to untangle something and get results.

Now think about how rare that experience is. Alternatively, if you have never had the good fortune to meet one of these wonderful creatures, reflect on how nice it would be to deal with one. They once existed, I promise.

Now think back to your recent interactions with employees at places like your bank, the phone company, your ISP, etc. Have any of your experiences been any good? When was the last time you were forced to call someplace and got a human without fighting a clanker hooked to the phone line? When you finally got through to a person did they actually know how to do anything?

Companies have forgotten the face of their father.

3. Amazon

I don’t maintain an Amazon prime subscription anymore. Once upon a time ordering from Amazon meant that if there was some sort of issue you’d open a chat box or make a phone call and someone would take care of it right away. They had fast, and excellent, customer service. I was happy to pay for a Prime membership to get a deal on shipping prices and some extra goodies in the form of Prime Video. It hasn’t been like that for years now though. In fact, it’s so bad that I actively avoid ordering from them anymore.

My phone is pretty old at this point, but I don’t want to buy a new one. It still works fine for everything I want to do, and the battery life is even still half decent. The case, however, has fallen apart after many years of faithful service. My chances of finding an Otterbox that will fit an older phone at a local shop is probably pretty low, and with fuel prices the way they are currently I’m not up for an afternoon of driving all over hell’s half acre. Amazon it is.

Slight problem. I don’t have a mailbox here. I can get packages just fine, but USPS requires you to perform ancient rites and conjure a receptacle blessed by the postal gods to the premises. I forgot about this, because I also had to order couple other items at the same time. These other items arrived no problem, as they were shipped via shipping companies. The phone case bounced back to sender. A fact that nobody bothered to tell me about until I realized the case was late and went to check.

So, they’ll refund it. Irritating, but fine. I ordered another one and contacted support. This has strangely enough become more difficult than I remember. There used to be links to get help on an order from the order page. Now there are many more links, all pushing me to either a FAQ type page, or a LLM. I finally tracked down the “let me talk to someone” link and find the chat button. Surprise! It’s another dipshit LLM.

I copypasta the problem statement text I’m going to send this clanker 3 or 4 times until it sends me to a person. That works. I waste another few minutes while they “check on this” and type/click their scripted filler nonsense. They say it’s handled, and they won’t ship it USPS. Groovy.

Two days later I get an email saying the delivery is at the post office because they can’t deliver it.

I am Jack’s unsurprised, but still very real, anger.

4. Enshittification or Slop

They’re the same thing. Normies say slop, I say slop now too. Enshittification was probably too highbrow for an increasingly illiterate general public anyway. The prevalence of the term, though, indicates that people are becoming increasingly aware of the trend. We’re all noticing that everything is more and more expensive while also lower and lower quality.

This is playing out in the job market as well. RTO, benefits being cut back, RIF’s and turnover. Everyone racing to the bottom and offshoring as aggressively as possible. Degrading the experience of every single customer. The stock market mostly goes up and to the right, meanwhile we struggle with employment and affordability.

The people running companies are more concerned with doing whatever the stock market rewards than in providing goods and services. They have forgotten the face of their father. They have forgotten where the money actually comes from, the customers. They have forgotten who helps them get that money, the employees.

I think it’s time for the wheel to turn once more. In fact, I think it’s already starting to. If you can start a company that wants to provide a quality product or service for a reasonable price, now is the time. There’s a lot of talent that’s being under-appreciated or is flat out unemployed right now. I’m betting tomorrow’s corporate giants are currently being started. In living rooms and garages. Send Cut Send is an example of a rising star that I hadn’t even heard of two or three years ago.

I wonder what other future household names in the making are quietly deciding that enough is enough. Who else has noticed that “shareholder value” is nonsense, and decided to deliver real value to actual customers? It’s a really trying time for a lot of us right now. A scary and uncertain time. It’s also an exciting time I think.

Every day more and more people realize there’s no reason they should have to accept sub-par customer service/products just so that Bezos can have a wedding most notable for how costly it was between dinners with politicians.

P.S.

I noticed while I was moving the blog to its new home that I failed to place last month’s post in the correct folder somehow. I’ve corrected the placement so you should be seeing two “new” posts now. Sorry to anyone who felt like they were missing their monthly dose of my ramblings.