WHERE DID THE SERVICE (INDUSTRY) GO?! by Bishop Cynthia King Bolden Gardner

People once took pride in their jobs whether it was pumping gas, washing windshields, serving pie with coffee, buffing shoes, styling hair, folding laundry or a checkout Clerk, just to name a few.

Now, you practically have to beg to get assistance anywhere. Wal-Mart has 13-14 lines, yet only two are open with attendants AT THE FIRST PART OF THE MONTH, and the other are all self-checkout. No one, is at the Money Center, so you are forced to stand in the customer service; wrong product, bad product, ‘gimme-my-money-back’ line.

When making an online purchase on social media, English names and U.S. addresses are used, but when “it” shows up, “it” bears a non-conceivable, no financial prospect of return Chinese address.

Most of the banks, fast food, and family food chains are short staffed or closing down. Not because of Covid, either! People have found other reputable and some “not-so reputable” ways to make ends meet. There’s no joy, no happy expressions, just bland greetings, and forever holds online then finally, a customer service rep answers half-asleep from across the globe! You can’t use the “I paid my money for this” argument with a machine that tells you to follow prompts 1-20 and select. How much $ have you just given up on any hope of recovering? Nowadays, everybody is a coach, a brand specialist, a mastermind CEO, a web designer or a ‘lemme drive you crazy senior citizen with Medicare and Amazon fraud purchase claims’.

On the plus side, we have curbside grocers at Kroger’s, curbside pickup of online orders from Wal-Mart which are incredibly convenient, although I pick up my own groceries. Is the problem minimum wage? We thought so, but franchises that went up still do not appear to have adequate employees or employees with appropriate attitudes. What indeed is the solution? What has happened to the “service” in the industry? Will we ever see those days again?