I work at a nationally-known company. I have connections in our customer service department and have listened to calls from customers whose inability to concentrate or provide the most basic information would shock you. I’m not talking about people for whom English is a second language. I’m talking about run-of-the-mill Americans who, for reasons incomprehensible:
- Cannot verify the spelling of their own children’s names.
- Have to look on their driver’s licenses to confirm their address.
- I am not making this up: when one caller was asked to confirm the spelling of his very basic English name, he paused and said he would have to check his license.
- Callers who are clearly not listening while important information is given to them only to argue later that they weren’t told.
- Callers who interrupt while being given important information in order to ask if they are going to be given the very information that was being provided.
- Don’t know the name of their banks.
- Have to call their banks in order to get their banking information.
- Can’t identify their credit card provider (Mastercard, Visa…)
- Cannot follow basic instructions to save their lives.
- Do not know the name of the company they just called.
- Callers who rattle off their social security numbers automatically even though the representative doesn’t ask for it. As opposed to…
- Callers who get upset when the representatives in our government-regulated industry have to verify their identity before releasing personal information.
- Parents, spouses, social workers, pastors, secretaries, gardeners who call on behalf of full-grown adults and expect to be provided with protected and private information about those persons, despite no authorization on file to do so. Has no one heard of HIPAA?
- The caller who was asked to verify the best telephone at which to reach him and gave his full 16-digit credit card number instead.
and the number of callers with whom the following conversation is endlessly repeated staggers the mind:
Representative: “I’m going to give you the customer service telephone number. Please let me know when you’re ready.
Caller: “I’m ready.”
Representative: “1-800…”
Caller: “Hold on! Hold on!”
Assuming the representative does not have to repeat the telephone number three or four times, after the number is given…
Caller: “What number is this to again?”
Do you want to know why call center employees don’t give out their last names? Customers are now finding phone numbers and addresses online and contacting representatives directly at home, after working hours. Some will even show up on the doorstep and scream at the representative who, not being at work, has no access to the information.
I realize that this is mere anecdotal evidence. I also realize that it is a mere sampling which may or may not demonstrate anything. However, I have listened to conversations like these for a long time and they do tend to mirror much of what we are seeing in public discourse now. Inattentiveness, impulsiveness, entitlement and, as Steve mentioned, laziness.
Ethics Alarms 
As always, I am honored. There was so much material I could have included and so much more on this subject that the comment could have made two entries.
Some time ago I started saying “Life is an IQ test…and it’s getting harder every year.”
Who said it? The internet won’t tell me. It’s not my own idea. It should be credited to the person who noted it. Who I cannot identify.
Thoughts in no particular order.
Mea Culpa
I have lived at addresses where I could not state the address. I could get there and let myself in with a key. This did not last long–but it happened. no need for further details.
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A similar situation: I have had a credit card where I didn’t know the 5 digit zip code associated with the card, because I couldn’t remember which of the several mailing addresses I was using was matched to the card.
Someone might not know the name of their bank because their bank changed names. Multiple times.
I’ve known foreigners who had their name spelled wrong on their USA identity documents. It may have happened to my mother’s oldest brothers, in fact. They were near-foreigners at that point, though born here. Their father’s English proficiency was poor.
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I have trouble remembering the name of our local land-line telephone company and ISP. “Rochester Telephone” makes too much sense–so it’s now “Frontier.” It’s been 30 years, but I was living out of state when it happened.
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If I get an email saying Amazon has billed my credit card for an iPhone shipped to Karachi Pakistan, it is not a notice that I have been defrauded. Rather, it is a phishing attempt that seeks to defraud me by getting me to click on a link and provide my info. The warning of fraud is usually itself a fraudulent attack, by phishing.
If I get a phone call from my grandson who is in jail, it’s not my grandson calling from jail. So many times he seemed to be calling from jail–until we dropped the landline.
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If I get a charitable solicitation that is marked “URGENT” it’s not a bill. Bills aren’t marked “URGENT,” they are marked “your statement.”
There are many documented cases in which the elderly have to have their checkbooks taken away by their children because they have trouble telling (1) what is a bill and (2) what is a charitable solicitation that could be confused with a bill.
While we are at it, if you have a magazine subscription there are predatory companies that have you renew your subscription through them at a *higher rate*. Is this still a thing? So you need to recognize that racket.
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We have a new federal holidays that didn’t previously exist (Juneteenth) and a few others that have alternate names (Columbus Day aka Indigenous People’s Day, for example).
It used to be the case, until AI came along, that when I asked “How many genders are there?) I was told 72.
Maybe this is just the standard effect of a changing world. I’m not so sure.
Now that I have finished my rant, “A M” is correct. We are getting dumber. but it’s not monotonic with respect to all variables. How to characterize it is a challenge.
Distraction is a big issue, as is laziness.
Additionally there is the endless series of lies or half-truths or bullsh*t spewed at us by the news, as Konstantin Kisin noted some years ago. If the following is paywalled, it’s posted in a few other places. I’ve likely shared it before.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/vaccines-konstantin-kisin
charles w abbott
rochester NY
P.S.: I considered deleting this post but I know Jack thinks we don’t have enough commenters. If this comment sucks, I’ve “taken one for the team.”
Charles: on the contrary, this is exactly the kind of comment I had hoped AM’s post would trigger.
In my case, I don’t think I’m getting “dummer,” I’ve just always been stupid about certain things. For example,
The last time I knew my personal phone # off the top of my head was when I lived in Arlington Mass, at 617-642-1815. I still don’t know my current cell phone number.
I don’t remember birthdays. I never learned by parents birthdays
My entire life, if you hand me something while I am focused on something else, I will not only lose it, I will deny that you handed it to me.
I spell “piece,” “receive” and “Michael” wrong before I fix it ever single time, and always have.
After I take something out of the oven, I always forget to turn the oven off.
No matter how important something is, a Red Sox game will always distract me.
I cannot make DropBox work for me.
No matter how much I need to, I cannot figure out how to make Ethics Alarms capable of getting me income without making it less valuable.
I’ve never been able to type, text correctly, scan a QR code, or use 99% of what’s on my smart phone.
I couldn’t avoid enabling my late wife’s alcoholism, or find a way to keep her happy.
I can’t do taxes.
I never figured out how to flirt, court a woman, or be the first one to try a kiss.
That’s just to start with! Reading the above, I realize that I’m pathetic. Where’s that wood-chipper?
Jack, I can do taxes. If I weren’t happily married, I would invite you out to dinner.