Expectations p.239
They will get you in trouble
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Make plans but don’t plan outcomes. That is one of the best little sayings I’ve ever heard. It helps enormously when things go a little haywire.
Like this recent scenario. I needed to make a small change to an online insurance policy, 5 minute job, 10 minutes tops. I had budgeted a little time in between several tasks that I needed to do that morning. So I go on the website and login into my account.
But wait. I logged in and got the red message, “Your information does not match your User Name and/or Password.” What? I tried again this time putting in every character one at a time. Again “Your information does not match your User Name and/or Password.” What are you talking about?
I have a “password log” in a notebook, (I know that is supposed to be a no-no) and looked up the information just to be sure. Yep, I have it right. I tried again with the same results. Then I went to a different login site and tried. Same thing. Then still another site for policy updates. Same results. At this point I could just scream.
Now my only option was to call the dreaded “800 number” and talk to a human then get into my account and then execute the small change I imagined at the outset of my safari into business Internet hell. Everyone reading this knows what happened next: after a half-dozen prompts and some inane “security questions” I was put on hold. Between the audio torture inflicted by canned “music” and the occasional message, “Stay on the line, you are a valued customer, a professional representative will soon take care of your problem” then after almost an hour I had some sort of bleeding episode in my nervous system that was driving me to an angry exasperation.
But why? Not taking into account the times we live in I had an expectation that I could get a small job done. I made plans according to that expectation and it did not go well.
For what reason did I imagine this frustrating drama not happening? Maybe in the misty past of some bygone day things always functioned correctly. A knowledgeable person was promptly on the other end of the phone who could direct me to resolve my issue. But that was then this is in the present where my country supports several shooting wars that benefit no one except elitist think-tanks and shadowy oligarchs.
I live in a society that values fear and mass delusions more than common service. Our so-call diverse, equitable, and inclusive community churns out fuzzy platitudes instead of plain old ordinary assistance. We cannot seem to fill out an over two hundred year old political process to place a couple Presidential candidates onto the ballot without rewriting history, corruption, and violence.
So why on earth should I have an expectation that a simple task to fix an online problem will go as planned. In the dysfunctional dark ages we live in expectations are silly at best and dangerous at worst. Make plans but don’t plan outcomes.
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