Empathy vs City Hall: People Over Bureaucracy

We talk about empathy in our culture a lot – what it is, what it isn’t, what it should be. But what does it really look like? What happens when people take the time to put themselves in someone else’s shoes (perspective taking)? Many times the ‘people’ part gets forgotten when we’re talking about large organizations, because empathy is harder when you’re dealing with groups, but what happens to the people these organizations touch?

Let me tell you about my latest saga with my local gas company. This morning I was around the house – working out, taking care of cats, responding to emails. You know, a normal Monday. Then suddenly, when I went to take a shower, there was no hot water (AAARGH)! I thought something was wrong with the water heater, so I went to cook an egg while I figured it out. When I went to turn on my gas range, that’s how I figured it wasn’t the water heater; it was the lack of gas. Wait, what?

I know we’ve almost all had a time when we had utilities shut off, when it was either the electricity or groceries, so you probably know that sinking feeling in your stomach when you know what’s happened. But you usually know it’s coming. There’s bills, and notices, usually in red, and calls. But that wasn’t the case here. There just suddenly wasn’t any gas.

This is when I saw the green placard blowing towards my door window from the handle – the one saying that someone had been here this morning (but never rang the bell) to do a ‘soft’ shut off (oh no, it was definitely a hard shut off). The bureaucracy was so big that they didn’t notice that the bills were paid. I’d never been notified and, worse yet, the organization as a whole just didn’t care.

Cue another 90 minutes on the phone, with me trying to get this turned back on. I had to talk them out of the re-hook-up-fee, and the fee to send someone out, and they could be here between 9am and 9pm the next day. Luckily it’s still warm enough where I am that I didn’t need the heater, but what if I had? No cooking, no heat, no hot water? For a large bureaucracy, it didn’t matter. And let me say that I have nothing but respect for the customer service reps – talk about being trapped in a toxic, unempathic system, where they don’t have the power to listen to people and do what’s needed, only to do whatever’s in the best interest of the company. I could hear how tired the person I was talking to was. The lack of empathy in her organization was affecting her as much as it was affecting me.

But just when I’m fit to be tied, I found someone who could get things restarted today, and was absolutely friendly, and willing to understand the human side of things. Just knowing that there was a person willing to listen and understand made all the difference. It still sucked, but it suddenly didn’t suck so bad because I wasn’t in it alone anymore.

When the guys did finally show up to turn everything back on, one was even chatty, and we talked about his daughter’s black cat. He didn’t have to do that. I’m just some silly lady with a cat doormat that reminded him of his daughter. Most people don’t even notice. But somehow, that connection made it so it wasn’t so bad. I felt seen and heard like a human and not just a payment and a nuisance.

Research says we have 9 to11 opportunities to interact with empathy every day. I think the point here is that while the large organization didn’t (or couldn’t) react with empathy, or put their people in the situation where they couldn’t act with empathy, it was different when the interaction became human-to-human. Maybe all we really need to be an empathic society is to remember that we’re people dealing with people. Although large groups have trouble with empathy, when we’re person to person, we can create understanding and connection, one person at a time.

Now we just have to convince some of these organizations that they’re made of people too. Just a thought.