People who insist on enforcing inflexible rules should realize how easily they are replaced by AI. If you refuse to engage your brain, you deserve to lose your job to something without one.
Back in the day, Continental Airlines was notorious, among my colleagues and many other people, as the worst airline in America. I'm sure there were other candidates in other companies, industries and regions, but for me as a young man Continental was the touchstone for abominable airline service.
Then at some point in the 1990s the company was purchased, I think by an investment group. A new CEO was installed, a former Boeing executive named Gordon Bethune. I remember reading a profile of Mr Bethune in BusinessWeek, where he outlined his plan to shake up a very sick corporate culture. One of the aspects of his program I vividly remember was his decision to exchange customer service rules for guidelines, basically empowering the flight crews and desk agents to make decisions about service issues on the spot, according to broad policy principles. Under Bethune, Continental went from being regarded as one of the worst airlines in the country to one of the best regarded, if not the best.
I'm sure Mr Bethune made a lot of other changes at Continental, but giving his customer-facing staff more flexibility in handling problems must have been one of his most effective measures, especially compared to the rigid, bovine obstinacy encountered at most other airlines. I must say I experienced it myself, as I was a frequent, and satisfied, Continental customer in the late 1990s.
A quarter century later, I distinctly recall that BusinessWeek article, and the importance, in many situations, of defining guidelines rather than rules.
People who are out of balance will swing from one extreme to the other. Strict rule followers will swing to the other extreme: lacking appropriate boundaries. Take masking as an example. The strict rule following maskers have no problem masking toddlers and resorting to unscrupulous tactics in order to manipulate/ coerce others into compliance. And the icing on the cake is their obliviousness to how difficult it is for others to endure the behavior.
... But we’re all human. And we all have our areas we’re out of balance. I suffer from constipation which is why I also display uncontrolled diarrhea mouth.
That was a joke. A bad one. And not funny. Because... never mind.
Private businesses often have their motto that "customer is the king." At least they try to make the customer feel like a king. So even when they can't bend a rule to a customer's satisfaction, they will do or say something to make the customer feel better.
A DMV employee has no incentive to make the customer feel like a king.
With the advent of EMR’s and what I called “clicker medicine” I watched critical thinking go right out the door. It was a sad downfall that - imo - seems to make medicine assembly line-ish for many. And that makes for bad medicine.
Much blame also lies with those that put these rigid and robotic people in these positions in the first place. Until we retool academia, especially in medicine we are doomed to chase mediocrity.
Brings to mind “sepsis protocol” rules and all of the other “protocols “ in the ER. People following you around with literal stopwatches to make sure I didn’t spend too much time talking with my patients.
Sounds like 99% of my bosses over the years. The bosses who got their position because they were yes-men (women), not because of their abilities or experience. I had more experience than they did, but I'm not about to accept every rule on it's face value. I have to know they why, and if they why doesn't make sense, I'm going to challenge it. (Guess that's why I was always the Indian and not the Chief.). Didn't hurt my feelings, like Dr. Prasad, a job with inflexible rules and/or rules that hold no merit would break my soul.
How did Joaquin Murrieta become a California bandit? I believe the answer is in an epic poem by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, who insists the Murrieta was also Chilean, as were other miners in California in the 1850s. Murrieta tried to immigrate his wife. He initiated the process sending documents to Chile. Months later the documents were returned completed. Now the US immigration officer asked for another form to be filled in Chile and returned. Murrieta did it again and again, always a new form from the bureaucrat and another several months of wait. Finally the US immigration officer handed Murietta a form title "Certificate of Complications" to complete. At that moment, according to Neruda (I cannot locate the poem.) Murrieta went mad and became an outlaw.
People who insist on enforcing inflexible rules should realize how easily they are replaced by AI. If you refuse to engage your brain, you deserve to lose your job to something without one.
Back in the day, Continental Airlines was notorious, among my colleagues and many other people, as the worst airline in America. I'm sure there were other candidates in other companies, industries and regions, but for me as a young man Continental was the touchstone for abominable airline service.
Then at some point in the 1990s the company was purchased, I think by an investment group. A new CEO was installed, a former Boeing executive named Gordon Bethune. I remember reading a profile of Mr Bethune in BusinessWeek, where he outlined his plan to shake up a very sick corporate culture. One of the aspects of his program I vividly remember was his decision to exchange customer service rules for guidelines, basically empowering the flight crews and desk agents to make decisions about service issues on the spot, according to broad policy principles. Under Bethune, Continental went from being regarded as one of the worst airlines in the country to one of the best regarded, if not the best.
I'm sure Mr Bethune made a lot of other changes at Continental, but giving his customer-facing staff more flexibility in handling problems must have been one of his most effective measures, especially compared to the rigid, bovine obstinacy encountered at most other airlines. I must say I experienced it myself, as I was a frequent, and satisfied, Continental customer in the late 1990s.
A quarter century later, I distinctly recall that BusinessWeek article, and the importance, in many situations, of defining guidelines rather than rules.
I miss Continental [under Bethune]! “Guidelines” make so much more sense than inflexible “rules.”
Always makes me happy to get Vinay in my inbox.
Its not about evidence based medicine or logical rules. Its about compliance.
That was a great article and I love the quote regarding rules. I’ve always considered rules as a guideline. There’s so much gray area.
People who are out of balance will swing from one extreme to the other. Strict rule followers will swing to the other extreme: lacking appropriate boundaries. Take masking as an example. The strict rule following maskers have no problem masking toddlers and resorting to unscrupulous tactics in order to manipulate/ coerce others into compliance. And the icing on the cake is their obliviousness to how difficult it is for others to endure the behavior.
... But we’re all human. And we all have our areas we’re out of balance. I suffer from constipation which is why I also display uncontrolled diarrhea mouth.
That was a joke. A bad one. And not funny. Because... never mind.
Private businesses often have their motto that "customer is the king." At least they try to make the customer feel like a king. So even when they can't bend a rule to a customer's satisfaction, they will do or say something to make the customer feel better.
A DMV employee has no incentive to make the customer feel like a king.
With the advent of EMR’s and what I called “clicker medicine” I watched critical thinking go right out the door. It was a sad downfall that - imo - seems to make medicine assembly line-ish for many. And that makes for bad medicine.
Much blame also lies with those that put these rigid and robotic people in these positions in the first place. Until we retool academia, especially in medicine we are doomed to chase mediocrity.
Brings to mind “sepsis protocol” rules and all of the other “protocols “ in the ER. People following you around with literal stopwatches to make sure I didn’t spend too much time talking with my patients.
Sounds like 99% of my bosses over the years. The bosses who got their position because they were yes-men (women), not because of their abilities or experience. I had more experience than they did, but I'm not about to accept every rule on it's face value. I have to know they why, and if they why doesn't make sense, I'm going to challenge it. (Guess that's why I was always the Indian and not the Chief.). Didn't hurt my feelings, like Dr. Prasad, a job with inflexible rules and/or rules that hold no merit would break my soul.
Got me thinking those grades were arbitrary
I love this essay.❤️
“I would kill myself if…”
Please, as a courtesy to your readers, don’t ever write this.
Thank you.
How did Joaquin Murrieta become a California bandit? I believe the answer is in an epic poem by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, who insists the Murrieta was also Chilean, as were other miners in California in the 1850s. Murrieta tried to immigrate his wife. He initiated the process sending documents to Chile. Months later the documents were returned completed. Now the US immigration officer asked for another form to be filled in Chile and returned. Murrieta did it again and again, always a new form from the bureaucrat and another several months of wait. Finally the US immigration officer handed Murietta a form title "Certificate of Complications" to complete. At that moment, according to Neruda (I cannot locate the poem.) Murrieta went mad and became an outlaw.
Well said. I can’t stand martinets.