> Under the thin pretense of Covid, increased labor power has exploded the use of automated technology that creates a frustrating maze to get a simple problem solved or task accomplished Has anyone else noticed how every single service call you make now has a (I suspect permanent) voice message saying "we are experiencing higher call volume than normal". If volumes are continuously higher than normal, then they're ar…
You know I think in the current business environment there is zero confidence in what the new normal is actually going to be. I don't think businesses like credit card issuers want to make people hold for a long time but I do think they are terrified of spending big bucks onboarding a lot of call centre staff and then having volumes drop off. And they honestly may not think they can afford the level of staffing required to bring wait times down in the long run and are grasping for technological solutions (that either don't work or are not mature enough to be effective).
As a farmer I certainly feel a bit paralyzed by the "new normal" - are these high commodity prices here to stay? High input costs? Am I facing decade or so of high-cost/high-margin production that would mean the securing land now is the optimal strategy? Or am I facing a decade or so of high-cost/low-margin operations if grain commodities fall back to earth but energy stays high in which case land prices will start to fall? The steady state of 2008-2019 was pretty easy to manage - this is a different world.