From: Max More (maxmore@primenet.com)
Date: Tue Nov 12 1996 - 09:53:50 MST
At 02:22 AM 11/11/96 -0500, Lyle wrote:
>
>Coming back to the original point: You were saying that there is a
>causal relationship between (a) the fact that government agencies don't
>need to create happy customers, and (b) the level of rudeness in those
>agencies. If people were rational, this causal relationship would exist,
>but in fact (in my experience at least) it doesn't exist.
In my own experience this relationship *does* exist. Certainly I have
experienced rudeness in privately-owned stores (in England, people working
in many shops seemed generally to ignore customers more commonly that I've
experienced here in California), and I've been treated decently in
government-run establishments.
However, *all* of the extremely bad experiences I've had have been in
government places: a truly horrible exchange on the border of Calfornia and
Mexico. That time I really had to struggle to avoid punching the other
person (and I'm *not* a violent person!). I've had two or three nasty
experiences with immigration-type government agencies. In the case of *real*
services (i.e. not as in "Internal Revenue Service") run by the state (Post
Office, etc.) I can't say I've had much worse treatment than in private
business. Most bad experiences have been due to imcompetence and slowness
rather than malevolence.
Lyle, if we separate state agencies like IRS, INS, and the rest, from
government services, would you say state agencies were ruder than private
businesses?
Max
Max More, Ph.D.
more@extropy.org
http://www.primenet.com/~maxmore
President, Extropy Institute, Editor, Extropy
info-exi@extropy.org, http://www.extropy.org
(310) 398-0375
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