How about that "productive" feeling I have when I am on a drive and I knock out all of my sludge? I have a technique to efficiently manage my sludge...Oh it is so inhuman. This "feeling" leaves me with the illusion of accomplishment and that boost we get from checking things off our to do lists.
It's good to know I now have a name for what I help people navigate against in my day job. But I also know that the phone systems and website of my company definitely strive to dump sludge into not only my work, but even more so for our participants. Still, good to be able to name one of my worst enemies. Better to know that my clients know and have said how much they appreciate how I bust through the sludge.
This hits close to home because I work for a company that designs automated phone systems. As you said, we do have an overarching goal of reducing the number of phone calls that get to a person; that's what we get paid to do. We do try to get there by recognizing that a lot of callers can handle simple issues themselves (and we give them the ability to do so), but we also have no illusions about the fact that some problems are too complex for a machine to solve, and so we don't pin people in when it's clear that it's an advanced issue.
This does give me a lot to chew on as far as how we do or don't acknowledge the humanity and dignity of our callers.
How about that "productive" feeling I have when I am on a drive and I knock out all of my sludge? I have a technique to efficiently manage my sludge...Oh it is so inhuman. This "feeling" leaves me with the illusion of accomplishment and that boost we get from checking things off our to do lists.
It's good to know I now have a name for what I help people navigate against in my day job. But I also know that the phone systems and website of my company definitely strive to dump sludge into not only my work, but even more so for our participants. Still, good to be able to name one of my worst enemies. Better to know that my clients know and have said how much they appreciate how I bust through the sludge.
This hits close to home because I work for a company that designs automated phone systems. As you said, we do have an overarching goal of reducing the number of phone calls that get to a person; that's what we get paid to do. We do try to get there by recognizing that a lot of callers can handle simple issues themselves (and we give them the ability to do so), but we also have no illusions about the fact that some problems are too complex for a machine to solve, and so we don't pin people in when it's clear that it's an advanced issue.
This does give me a lot to chew on as far as how we do or don't acknowledge the humanity and dignity of our callers.