 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 
|
|
 |
||||||||||||||||
|
Bar News - November 22, 2002 Excerpt from 'The Fiber Optic Confessional' Published Sunday, March 14, 1999 in The Sunday New York Times Magazine. This excerpt is published with permission of the author. I am a customer service representative. Along with 140 other C.S.R.s here at the corporate home office, I answer the phone for a major company. Specifically, I field questions from customers about their present insurance policies. In a very real way, like my counterparts at General Motors, General Electric or AT&T, I am the Voice – and the Ears – of Corporate America. I am right here on the phone, answering your questions, talking to you, soothing you. Did you like the menu that responded to your call? Did you like punching in all those numbers, just so I could ask you for the same numbers all over again? It’s not my fault. Still, I love to hear you complain about it. With these ergonomically engineered earpieces on I cannot hear anyone but you; within my scientifically structured cubicle, I am tethered to the monitor in front of me, which has only information about you. I am completely isolated from the people around me. ...When you play cat-and-mouse with me about disclosing your Social Security number – so you can prove who you are – I love that, too. Some of you buck and say that you won’t give me your Social Security number, or that you’ll only give me the last four digits. It doesn’t matter. Whether you give me only part of the number and your street address, or whether you give me your mother’s maiden name and your birth date, you have given me the keys to your life. The battle over your privacy was fought by my corporate masters long, long ago. You lost. Niggling over a digit or two now won’t restore your privacy. I know you and your family intimately. In part because of the information on the screen in front of me. But I’ve also learned to read between the lines of what you tell me. When you ask me to record a change in your insurance, I hear the tentativeness in your voice – the person you knew and loved has died and is now being reduced to cold cash; when you remove your children from coverage, it’s because they don’t need your coverage anymore and, by extension, they don’t need you.
|
|
Home | About the Bar | For Members | For the Public | Legal Links | Publications | Online Store New Hampshire Bar Association |
