To be sure, it is not the worker – and even if it is the worker we have to look at the system in which s/he is engaged. And it is still the responsibility of all of us: complaining as obligation and democratic engagement of citizens -and as we are living in a service society or a society that claims to be a service society, the service provision has to be targeted.
DHL, the little that is left from the public postal service in Germany, now an internationally dominante player in the transport sector, claims for instance on LinkedIn to be highly engaged in activities that are promoted —, ops, promoting social engagement. On the other hand, at least in my experience of the delivery of goods and letters to private users is highly questionable. So far this has been for me a question of not delivering to the door or letterbox, even if I had been definitely in the apartment. Another topic is the fact that includes extremely complicated to get post delivered to one of these 24 hours lockers. But it’s the most recent experience is just appalling, the way in which complaints are handled. An open letter may give some insight, and definitely expresses my annoyance due to the ignorance and lack of respect I met. I feel sorry for the workers who are pushed into the direction of functioning as machines, cum grano salis “sine ira et studio” as known from Tacitus, later applied by Weber on the bureaucracy, here seen as determining the way in which services are provided: instead of being a matter of public services, guaranteeing the rights of citizens (in this case: the right to free communication), service provision, privatised now, is geared to generating profit, hardly compatible with citizens’ rights and even standing detrimental against consumer rights.— Seems to be far fetched? It is .. but not seeing the complex interaction and dependency of things is exactly the problem: as long as we think in terms of cogwheels we will not be more than instrumental cogwheels; as soon as we begin to understand ourselves as part of a machine, we may be able to develop alternatives.
COMMEDIA DELLA VITA OR PÁNTA RÊI'S FIRM GROUND 