I confess ...

You guys have all heard of PostSecret, right?

In case you haven't, in 2005, this guy Frank Warren decided to give the world a place (via blog) where they could anonymously admit their biggest secrets. It could be about anything they wanted. Whatever they were compelled to confess about themselves, everyone would know it without being aware of who the secret belonged to.

Basically, Frank's a genius.

The response that Frank generated was so large that he's since published several books, chockfull of brilliance, continued to update his blog that now has over 4 million viewers, and has had excerpts from his community project displayed at the Museum of Modern Art. (If you want to see/learn more, go here.)

Every Sunday, as when it originally began, Frank updates his blog with new secrets. Brought to my attention by a co-worker of mine, this is one of the confessions that was included in the 07-31-11 post:

My heart didn't know where to begin. Leap with pride? Laugh? Acknowledge that familiar tug, that pang of oh-so-correctness that confirms that this struggle isn't just mine, isn't just ours? By the way, I wrote that. (I didn't. But I could have. Really, every one that I've worked with in the past year and a half of my life could have. So, whoever it was out there, we feel you. We really do.)

The point is, whatever is driving us to the point of chastising a nation's priorities via pastry bag (both figuratively and literally, in this case) is bigger than perhaps even I had anticipated. We aren't just disappointed in our employers; we're disappointed in each other, in the people we're forced to represent. We're let down to the point that we, or at least I, now find ourselves interested in jobs that keep us out of human contact, jobs that don't expect a true sense of service, jobs that grant us 99% solitude and silence to 1% interaction with the world around us . However, unless our ambitions bring us to some sort of monastic life, a kind of quiet I can only imagine, we're plainly out of luck. This is one of those sad-but-true moments. Take it in slow.

People say things all the time about the nature of customer service, about the hard road that it requires. I'm wondering, however, what type of employment isn't a form of just that? There is always a clientele, a merchant, a buyer and a seller, someone on the other side of the fence that is interested in what you provide, whether you're at the top of the chain or the burger-flipper. Let's not confuse ourselves into thinking that the classier the consumer the smoother the transaction. Plainly obvious, to me now more than ever, people are hard to please. They will have it their way, promptly, they will be compensated for lost time and incomplete gratification, they will harshly inform you of the ways in which you have wronged them, have dissatisfied them, and they will be disrespectful in their tone, outrageous in their requests, and dismissive on a very personal level.

So here's my thought. If we're going to be better and what we do, it would help to be better on the other side of the fence as well. I don't want to be a part of the awful people this person was referencing. I don't want to be part of the reason they feel humiliated by our societies. I don't want to take part in why they question the purpose of being here or working diligently. I don't know their position. Maybe they're me. Maybe they were caught in a bad time, maybe they lost a previous position, had a move, are still in high school. It doesn't matter. The point is, we as a whole have let them down. We were short-tempered with someone who didn't deserve it, we were taking a phone call while placing our order, we demanded or barked or brushed off. And, like they said, it's pathetic. When we have stopped having time to be basically kind together, we have altogether missed the point.

I'm not saying that if every customer I ever encountered was a complete doll that I'd be in love with my job. Far from it. But it would give me a little more faith in people. It would make other possibilities seem more, well, possible. Would it change everything, no.

But, I think it could change me.