| name | value |
| date | 2025-01-13 |
| location | Playa del Carmen, MX |
| author | Anton |
I'm on the call with an Airbnb support. There is a problem with the apartment I'm staying in and I need to cancel current booking and immediately move to another place.
The customer agent tells me he understands my problem and "empathizes" with it. He tells me he will help me and that I shouldn't worry, saying "I'm here for you". But of course he cannot solve it immediately and needs to "escalate" it. Because his supervisor is "busy", I shouldn't stay on the line and they will call me back.
I'm happy that all goes like this and hang up. I wait for one hour but they never call me back. I'm starting to get nervous. Remember, I need to cancel this place, find and book a new one, and move immediately. I don't have that much spare time. So I call them again.
Another person picks up. I explain the problem from scratch and they say exactly the same things as the first person - how they "truly understand me" and how they are going to call back.
The cycle repeats. I hang up and wait for one hour. No one calls me back. I call for the third time and get exactly the same answer. This time I press the agent to tell me when they're going to call me back and in how many minutes. He says "in less than 30 minutes".
Of course, no one calls me back after 35 minutes and I call again. I talk to representative number 4. I retell my story and my frustrations with customer support. He listens and says how sorry he is and how he understands me and wants to help me.
But this time he tells me he will take over the case but would need 2 hours to solve the issue. He asks for 2 more hours after I reached out to support for the first time 5 hours ago.
At this point I realize that now I am a character in one of Kafka's stories. I cannot do much and this company is just wasting my time and energy. But what infuriates me the most is the fake empathy and fake understanding. I call it "toxic sweetness".
They say the right things with the sweetest voice. But of course, those things are not true. It's like a snake that slowly wraps around you and with each minute slowly suffocates you. It draws your energy and willpower bit by bit.
At the end you are left with nothing. Your sense of agency is depleted. You understand that you are against a corporation that prioritizes money. You understand that support is just a "cost item" for AirBnB. They want to reduce support and they are not doing it for me. You understand that customer support was designed to be that way. Those customer agents were trained to talk like that. They cannot really help you and of course they do not "empathize" with you. Who came up with the idea that they should? I've never asked for empathy. I don't need it. I need my problem to be solved with the least amount of time and least amount of effort from me. I do not need customer support agent feel what I feel. It would be selfish of me.
Reflections
- systems that are designed to frustrate and not help are antihuman.
- systems that misuse the language and mess with your perception of objective events and feelings are antihuman.
- systems that reduce agency of people are antihuman.
- systems that reduce your energy are antihuman.