"AOL, you're FIRED!"
My friend James Smith is general manager of WWAY-TV in Wilmington, NC. Before that, he was news director and anchor here at KPLC. He has a favorite phrase which is not only good advice for his employees, but also a sage way for all people and organizations to go about their daily business.
“Never be more trouble than you’re worth.”
Boy, isn’t that the truth. Now, determining what you’re worth is the tricky part. Progressive people throughout the centuries have been redefining that. Thank God for those liberals. If it were not for them, we’d still be beating each other to death with stones at river’s edge in an attempt to secure water for our own tribe. (Fire would not have been invented yet, since it would be an affront to Tribal Values.) Thank God also for conservatives, because they’ve provided the necessary counterbalance to all the goofy ideas progressives come up with that deserve to get chunked into the ashcan. Conservatives also serve to make sure the rest of us are fully aware of what God looks like and what He thinks.
More on “conservatives” and “liberals” later in a future blog. In fact, maybe if I wait long enough, mass culture will have moved on to some other prevailing pair of tissue-thin, stupidly warring factions, to which those who prefer not to apply individual critical thinking may grandly attach themselves.
It used to be easy here in America. Through much of the 20th Century, it was Whites vs. Blacks. Then along came all those Latins, Hispanics, Near-Asians and Far-Asians. Now in most communities, quaint black-white squabbles have taken their place in the parade of U.S. history alongside the great Mustang-Camaro showdowns of the 1970’s. Now there are so many car and human varieties out there that we can’t keep track, so we resort to defining ourselves as either conservative or liberal. Our side (you and me) stands for good and wisdom. The other side (them) stands for evil and idiocy.
But I digress.
No, this blog is about not being more trouble than you’re worth, and you’ve probably gotten from the title that America Online has become for me more trouble than they’re worth. Yep, after years and years of being their loyal customer, they’ve given me no choice but to fire them. I’ll pull the plug on both my personal and business accounts as soon as I can migrate my family from our familiar AOL addresses to some other @mail program.
Why? Simple. They didn’t listen. They came up with all kinds of new stuff without asking me what's really important to me. Then, they imposed all kinds of limitations on the part of the service I use most often (@mail). I don’t mind the new stuff unless it comes at the expense of the old stuff I still want. My business was theirs to lose. And they’ve lost it. They failed in the most efficient way possible to live up to what I consider…and pay…them to be worth.
I tried to find help on their site. No luck. I called their customer service phone number and after working my way through a phalanx of voice-activated prompts I found myself speaking with (big surprise) a gentleman somewhere in India who probably learned English last year.
Don’t get me wrong. That’s pretty darned impressive. If I tried to learn his native language, I doubt I’d be ready to help customers of India Online solve their problems in 2006. Anyway, he steered me back to a dark corner of the AOL site where I basically had to admit to being a spammer if I was to continue sending @mails to friends and family. I think not.
So, AOL, you’re fired. You’re so fired, it’s not even funny. If you were the quarterback, I’d sack you and then I'd go after your family. You have become more trouble than you’re worth.
The last time I was so angry at a company was when American Airlines put my very sick aging mother in a van and drove her from Dallas to Lake Charles in the middle of the night because they didn’t want to torch up a turboprop for the handful of passengers they had that night. When I called their customer service line, I was arrogantly instructed that if I read the boilerplate on my ticket envelope, I’d see that they could do that whenever they wanted. So there.
There were other such experiences with American. When others were bemoaning AA pulling the plug on their service to Lake Charles, I’ve gotta admit I was popping the champagne cork. Good riddance. Don’t let the hatch door hit you on the way out.
I write this as a reminder that business…and life…doesn’t have to be that way. At the other end of the spectrum is Southwest Airlines. My whole family is so enamored with SWA that we think of them as family. Every time we fly them, every time we log onto their website, we are reminded in the smallest and largest of ways that they are less trouble than they are worth. This concept is so engrained into Southwest’s culture, it’s difficult to think of them ever acting any other way.
But if they do…if they ever become more trouble than they’re worth…they’ll be fired too. Someone else will come along and be less trouble than they’re worth. Until then, we’re quite happy to drive to Hobby Airport to catch flights from our favorite airline.
I must admit that in running KPLC, I try to emulate Southwest Airlines in terms of how we think of our customers (viewers, advertisers, and employees). When we get it right, we celebrate. When we get it wrong, we try our best to make it right and learn from the experience. Being the “big guy” in the local TV marketplace, the challenge at KPLC is to keep reinventing ourselves while keeping the current best interests of our customers in mind. It’s a delicate balancing act. When we fail a customer, we get fired and some scrappy newcomer is happy to come along and try and get right what we got wrong.
The landscape is littered with companies which got arrogant and then got fired. And I mean REALLY fired. For every AOL, there’s a Google that comes out of the bushes. For every American Airlines, there’s a Southwest Airlines at which to scoff. The same goes for individual people. I'm sure you can think of many examples.
So as I sign up for my new G-mail account tonight, join me in pondering the sage admonition of James Smith. “Never be more trouble than you’re worth.”
“Never be more trouble than you’re worth.”
Boy, isn’t that the truth. Now, determining what you’re worth is the tricky part. Progressive people throughout the centuries have been redefining that. Thank God for those liberals. If it were not for them, we’d still be beating each other to death with stones at river’s edge in an attempt to secure water for our own tribe. (Fire would not have been invented yet, since it would be an affront to Tribal Values.) Thank God also for conservatives, because they’ve provided the necessary counterbalance to all the goofy ideas progressives come up with that deserve to get chunked into the ashcan. Conservatives also serve to make sure the rest of us are fully aware of what God looks like and what He thinks.
More on “conservatives” and “liberals” later in a future blog. In fact, maybe if I wait long enough, mass culture will have moved on to some other prevailing pair of tissue-thin, stupidly warring factions, to which those who prefer not to apply individual critical thinking may grandly attach themselves.
It used to be easy here in America. Through much of the 20th Century, it was Whites vs. Blacks. Then along came all those Latins, Hispanics, Near-Asians and Far-Asians. Now in most communities, quaint black-white squabbles have taken their place in the parade of U.S. history alongside the great Mustang-Camaro showdowns of the 1970’s. Now there are so many car and human varieties out there that we can’t keep track, so we resort to defining ourselves as either conservative or liberal. Our side (you and me) stands for good and wisdom. The other side (them) stands for evil and idiocy.
But I digress.
No, this blog is about not being more trouble than you’re worth, and you’ve probably gotten from the title that America Online has become for me more trouble than they’re worth. Yep, after years and years of being their loyal customer, they’ve given me no choice but to fire them. I’ll pull the plug on both my personal and business accounts as soon as I can migrate my family from our familiar AOL addresses to some other @mail program.
Why? Simple. They didn’t listen. They came up with all kinds of new stuff without asking me what's really important to me. Then, they imposed all kinds of limitations on the part of the service I use most often (@mail). I don’t mind the new stuff unless it comes at the expense of the old stuff I still want. My business was theirs to lose. And they’ve lost it. They failed in the most efficient way possible to live up to what I consider…and pay…them to be worth.
I tried to find help on their site. No luck. I called their customer service phone number and after working my way through a phalanx of voice-activated prompts I found myself speaking with (big surprise) a gentleman somewhere in India who probably learned English last year.
Don’t get me wrong. That’s pretty darned impressive. If I tried to learn his native language, I doubt I’d be ready to help customers of India Online solve their problems in 2006. Anyway, he steered me back to a dark corner of the AOL site where I basically had to admit to being a spammer if I was to continue sending @mails to friends and family. I think not.
So, AOL, you’re fired. You’re so fired, it’s not even funny. If you were the quarterback, I’d sack you and then I'd go after your family. You have become more trouble than you’re worth.
The last time I was so angry at a company was when American Airlines put my very sick aging mother in a van and drove her from Dallas to Lake Charles in the middle of the night because they didn’t want to torch up a turboprop for the handful of passengers they had that night. When I called their customer service line, I was arrogantly instructed that if I read the boilerplate on my ticket envelope, I’d see that they could do that whenever they wanted. So there.
There were other such experiences with American. When others were bemoaning AA pulling the plug on their service to Lake Charles, I’ve gotta admit I was popping the champagne cork. Good riddance. Don’t let the hatch door hit you on the way out.
I write this as a reminder that business…and life…doesn’t have to be that way. At the other end of the spectrum is Southwest Airlines. My whole family is so enamored with SWA that we think of them as family. Every time we fly them, every time we log onto their website, we are reminded in the smallest and largest of ways that they are less trouble than they are worth. This concept is so engrained into Southwest’s culture, it’s difficult to think of them ever acting any other way.
But if they do…if they ever become more trouble than they’re worth…they’ll be fired too. Someone else will come along and be less trouble than they’re worth. Until then, we’re quite happy to drive to Hobby Airport to catch flights from our favorite airline.
I must admit that in running KPLC, I try to emulate Southwest Airlines in terms of how we think of our customers (viewers, advertisers, and employees). When we get it right, we celebrate. When we get it wrong, we try our best to make it right and learn from the experience. Being the “big guy” in the local TV marketplace, the challenge at KPLC is to keep reinventing ourselves while keeping the current best interests of our customers in mind. It’s a delicate balancing act. When we fail a customer, we get fired and some scrappy newcomer is happy to come along and try and get right what we got wrong.
The landscape is littered with companies which got arrogant and then got fired. And I mean REALLY fired. For every AOL, there’s a Google that comes out of the bushes. For every American Airlines, there’s a Southwest Airlines at which to scoff. The same goes for individual people. I'm sure you can think of many examples.
So as I sign up for my new G-mail account tonight, join me in pondering the sage admonition of James Smith. “Never be more trouble than you’re worth.”
posted by Jim Serra at 11/20/2005 01:03:00 PM
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