Where Everybody Knows Your Name

I parked in front of the dry cleaners on Friday, walked in, and the Asian lady owner said, “Hello Mr. Lemmond, here are your shirts.” She had recognized my car, activated her mammoth retrieval system, found my shirts, and hung them up in front of me.

 I said, “Thank you! Amazing----how did you remember my name?” “Well,” she said. “That’s my business. We have five hundred customers, and so far I only know four hundred of them.”

 Then I drove home. At 4:50 I discovered that my power was off. I thought---“Did I forget to play the bill? I better do something about it, because I’m going out of town for a week.” I raced to the nearest office of the power company. As I stepped out of the car, two things happened at once. My radio binged, signaling five o’clock, and the sole employee of the power company slammed her door behind her. She looked at me, pointed to the sign on the door---Hours 8-5. Then she shouted. “Closed!” and gleefully roared away

. I returned home, calmly of course. (The power was back on.) I emailed the president of the electric company, suggesting that his employee might have said I’m sorry or asked if it was an emergency and that I expected this kind of service from the post office but not from his esteemed service organization. (I got a form reply, saying sorry we’ll look into it.)

What’s happened to service? The dry cleaning lady has it. The electric lady was unplugged.

 At least can’t we expect some human contact?