SHANE STAY
  • Home
  • Blog
  • About the Author
  • Where to Buy
  • Press

Fedex experience: do it yourself (ns)

7/24/2014

10 Comments

 
   Everywhere you go today, for a service, they’re trying to show you how to do their job. I ask the man at FedEx to copy a double-sided piece of paper for me – which I have much trepidation over and dread it’s as hard as I imagine it to be; NASA-like instructions, Japanese braille, and Egyptian hieroglyphic motif all compiled into one – and he points over to the copy machine – a prop from Terry Gilliam’s Brazil – and says, “It’s easy.” Right, it’s “easy” he says; this is code for: I’m about to show you how to do my job. “All you do is copy the first side by pressing the scan and paste button, next to the flashing green arrow, then the screen will ask you a series of questions” – I don’t want to know how. That’s your job. I came here to pay you to do the job for me. I’m scrounging everyday for pennies to come in here and pay you with – one step removed from a guy next to a highway exit holding a sign reading “it’s not begging, it’s caring.” That’s why you work here: to do it for me. You’re getting paid. I’m not. I’m paying you. You do it. Quit telling me how I could do it. I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to learn. In fact, I don’t want to learn anything here. That’s how paying for a service works. You’ve been trained, you know how, I pay: you do. Then the result is, I do nothing. That’s what I want to do. Like Spinoza, Sunyata, the guy from Office Space: nothing.
   Even after you’ve implied you want them to do it – or flat our told them so – they stand at the machine with you, walking you step by step, convinced they’ll show you how to do their job one way or another. “So you see, just press that. Can you take it from here?” they ask as though you’re a toddler pushing triangles into triangles, squares into squares and circles into circles. When you see how it’s actually done you realize never in your wildest dreams you would’ve figured that out on your own. Rather, you would’ve been pushing triangles into squares for hours. There’s buttons and color options and size options and paper placement issues and saving and storing and arrows and calligraphy dissertations. It feels like a test course to becoming an astronaut.
   You tell him, “No. I can’t. You showed me once. It would probably take 20 examples for me to attain a primitive understanding of how to merely get through one-third of the task. I didn’t know I was being graded, I didn’t want to watch, I didn’t want to learn anything – I didn’t come here to learn. It’s ten o’clock at night, I’m tired, my exhaust meter is out, I’m at my limit of learning capabilities and I have no desire to learn how to do your job. It’s your job. You. Yours. Not mine. You-yours-you. Your job. You. Not me. You. Got it? I’m paying to have a job done – not to learn something.”
   Every time they show you how it’s done they conclude by saying, “So now that you know how, next time you can come in and do it yourself.” As though you want to come in and do it by yourself. We’re swimming up stream again, for no reason whatsoever. Again, I don’t want to do it by myself. In fact, every time I come in here I want to arrive as dumb as I was the last time, and I want you to do it for me, every time. It’s not my job. It’s yours. I don’t want the added pressure in life to learn another skill I’m going to use every Solstice or Equinox. It’s just not that important to me. Besides, it’s the principal of what’s wrong here: you’re trying to have a customer do the work you’re responsible for. It’s what you’ve been trained for, not us. It’s what you’re getting paid for, not us. Quit trying to teach or show or train the common layman how to do your job. It’s yours. You. Not me. Yours. You own it. You do it.

10 Comments
stephanie
7/27/2014 11:55:10 am

funny, funny - lol, this happens all the time. why don't they get it? it's their job!!!

Reply
M
7/30/2014 05:57:39 am

cracking up lol

Reply
Rach
7/30/2014 10:04:00 am

LOL

Reply
Craig
7/31/2014 01:47:57 pm

Hilarious! Good one.

Reply
lisa
8/24/2014 02:46:10 am

LOL!

Reply
A
10/21/2014 07:13:13 am

They're always telling us what to do!

Reply
brenda
12/16/2014 06:18:19 am

:)

Reply
Jane
1/30/2015 04:52:41 am

LOL check this out!

Reply
Andy
7/8/2015 02:58:00 pm

It's always the same there!

Reply
brian
7/14/2015 05:35:03 am

ha

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Shane stay +   
    ​(archives)     

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014

    KEY
    (NS) refers to "Non-Soccer" related blog entries, stories and essays.

    Author

    Shane Stay, author of The Euro 2020, The World Cup 2018 Book, Why American Soccer Isn't There Yet.

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

    All Written Work Copyright 2014-2023 Shane Stay

Proudly powered by Weebly