Half a Life in Customer Service

I recently turned sixty four, well into my Sunset Years.

At IBM I spent eleven years in customer service as a Systems Engineer, ten years of that helping General Motors.

As of this writing, at craigslist, I've done twenty-one years of customer service, though these days, I do just enough to stay in touch with what's real.

Doing direct customer service for 32 years, helping maybe 100 million people get a job and a place to live, has really changed me. If anyone starts off with any shred of elitism, customer service is a massive dose of empathy and compassion. I started off as an old-school nerd, sharp elbows and rough edges, but nowadays, not so much.

I feel that all company leaders, CEOs, maybe anyone in the C-suite should do some customer service. It can remind people of what's real, and to recover empathy that might've been lost, climbing that corporate ladder.