How was your visit to the ATM?

By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist

I kid you not: The headline of this column was the subject line of an email I got from my bank the other day.

I didn’t bother to open it, but it probably was a query designed in such a way that I couldn’t provide the answers I would like (such as: it would be great if you cleaned the bird droppings off the top of it once in a while or, perhaps, could you re-orient it so the morning sun does not fade out the screen).  

Instead, it probably has questions designed by a software engineer sitting in an air-conditioned room 1,000 miles away. Questions like: Is our font easy to read or do you have any suggestions for our background color?

It seems like today every vendor who has my email address sends me a survey after my latest visit. This means that if I go to the hospital to get one test done, and the same day I go across town to another branch of the same hospital to get another test done, I will end up with two surveys in my email inbox.

Of course, this doesn’t need to be physical locations, either. It can be Amazon or an Amazon vendor. Sometimes I get the survey before the services or products are delivered.  

Then there is the company that puts fertilizer on my lawn, or the bug spraying company that treats our house. They want to know if I am happy, too.

(An aside: Have you seen the video – not a joke – of Kamala Harris explaining the internet cloud? In this video she says with the “cloud” your data doesn’t physically exist anywhere, then as she waves her arms skyward, she says it is up in the “cloud.” You can’t make this stuff up.)  

I’ll bet all these cloud services that have spent billions of dollars building server farms and gigantic solar arrays to power them will be startled to hear this.

There is indeed one group of entities from which you don’t get these inane surveys.  

This group is any government service provider. In our capitalist society, private companies that wish to do business with us are not allowed to be monopolies – that means a single-source provider. So, we have the opportunity to take our business elsewhere if we wish. Hence, the abundance of surveys attempting to make sure we are happy and don’t leave. Capitalism keeps prices down and quality up.

It is different with governments. Ever gotten a survey from the local tax office or the local license plate office? No, because they are monopolies. They don’t care what you think of their service; you have to use it, love it or hate it.

Same can be said for Social Security, police departments, the highway department and many, many others. You have no choice but to use them. They are legal monopolies.

The only time we hear anything from government personnel is about six months before each election when the candidates are suddenly interested in our happiness with their service. At that point, they do want you to be happy and vote for them.  

But it is a fleeting experience.

Thus, for those of you who think socialism is the way to go and if you succeed in pushing us further that way, rest assured when that day comes, you won’t be bothered with any pesky surveys – for you will be dealing with monopolies that could care less about how you feel about their services.  

My favorite in this area is nationalized health care. I have tried it both in England and Finland. In both cases it failed miserably. No thanks.

Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press. He may be reached at jthompson@taii.com.