A Nation, A World, Of Disconnected Voices – We Are Not Just Bowling Alone, We Are Living Alone

Once a lender sold a mortgage, it no longer had a stake in whether the borrower could make his or her payments.
McLean and Nocera, All The Devils are Here, on one unintended consequence of modern mortgage practices.

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“No one is left from the Glenn Valley, Pennsylvania Bridge Club who can tell us precisely when or why the group broke up…” These are the opening words of Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone.  I think it may be time to re-read this modern day lament, this tragic story of loss.

Here is a simple premise – if I know you, I want to please you.  The better I know you, the more I want to please you.  Or, at least, the more it matters to me that I don’t disappoint you.

Why?  Because I know you.  And why else?  Because we run in the same circles, and if I disappoint you or let you down or give you bad customer service, you will tell your friends – and they all know me.  And that will be very embarrassing…

Well, that was the good old days.  When we lived in neighborhoods, and knew each other by name, and our banker was someone we saw at church or in the restaurant or at the Rotary Club.  After all, our kids played baseball together.

Not so much anymore.

Today, nearly all of our business dealings are with strangers.  The voice we hear on the other end of the phone is in fact just that – a voice, not a person.  They don’t know us.  We don’t know them.  Oh, some companies do a really good job making that voice friendly and helpful (more companies need to work on this).  But in the end, that voice is still a stranger’s voice.

Our bank – well, our bank is a corner drive through, or a grocery store walk-up — some satellite location of some massive mega-chain of a “too big to fail” bank.  We don’t know a banker.  Heck, we don’t even walk into our bank anymore.  The deposit is automatic (electronic).  They “pay us extra” for that, in fewer charges.

Good.

Bad.

Good, because it is quick, easy, automatic.  We don’t have to “do” anything.

Bad – because nobody knows us, and we don’t know anybody.

Ok, I am presenting the worst case in this scenario, but I’m not far off, am I?

I knew a man who was wildly successful as an insurance man in Long Beach, California.  A nice man – a good man.  One of the things he did was to pay every bill in person.  Every bill.  He would walk in with a check in hand, so that he could meet, and talk to, the person he would hand the check to.  Every month.  In every bank, every utility company, he had friends.  And customers.  He was a master networker, before anyone came up with the word.

And if you needed something, from his company, or from someone else, he could help you.  He wanted to help you.  He did help you!

But, the further we move away from these little moments of human contact, the less we serve customers that we know, and the less that we are served by people that know us.

No, I don’t know how to fix this.  But, I think, as I read All the Devils Are Here, one unintended consequence jumped out at me.  It really would be good to know the people we make our mortgage payments to.  And it would be really good if they knew us.

Don’t you think?