The Affirmative Action Ruling and Lousy Customer Service Is The Norm

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The whole now ruling to rule,you know, to do away with affirmative
action not a surprise for me basedon who was sitting on a Supreme court,
and not a surprise at all.But we see, My issue with
affirmative action altogether is there was areason affirmative action had to be put in
place to begin with. See,we're not dealing with the route, because

(00:22):
the root is why did we haveto put affirmative action in place? To
begin with? Affirmative action that hadto be put in place to write or
even try to or I can't evensay it right, it to attempt to
right or wrong to begin with,Had things been done correctly in the beginning,

(00:42):
you would not have needed to putaffirmative action in place. Well,
what do you mean by that?Mark? What I mean by that is,
had the best qualified people, regardlessof their skin color, ethnicity,
raised background, sexual preference, whatever, had the most and best qualified person
obtain the job or their place inschool or whatever it was, had they

(01:04):
been chosen to begin with, therewould have not been in need for affirmative
action. The reason affirmative had actionhad to be put in place because folks
were making choices and decisions of whocould get hired and who can get in
schools and who can get that inthe other not based on qualifications. It
was based on skin color. Itwas based on race. So the most

(01:26):
qualified person may very well have beensomeone of someone not in the dominant group,
yet they would not have gotten theposition because they were not a part
of the dominant group, and someoneless qualified who was in the dominant group,
even though they sat right there andhad the same interview. They may
have even passed each other as onewalked out the door and the other one

(01:48):
walked in. And the dominant groupperson may have been even less qualified than
the person who was in the nondominant group, And yet the person in
the dominant group was hired only becausesolely because so that's why affirmative action had
to be put in place to beginwith. That's why most things that were
segregated as ever had to be putin place to begin with. Fraternities and

(02:12):
sororities. And those of you whoare listening who are in the front or
sorority, we that those of youin the black community and the black sorority,
you know of the Divine nine.The reason the Divine nine had to
come into being is because we werenot allowed. And when I say we,
I'm talking African Americans were not allowedinto the Caucasian fraternities. So they
said in sororities. So they said, you know what, fine, we'll

(02:35):
start our own. That's why thoseseven Jewels or seven brothers up at Cornell
University got together and they said,well, we'll form our own. You
don't want us in yours, We'regoing to form our own. And that's
how Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated beganin nineteen oh six at Cornell University.
That's why those seven men got togetherbecause they were like, okay, you

(02:57):
don't want us in yours, thenwe will start our own. The reason
affirmative action had to be put inplace is because the playing field, it's
not even a matter of being level. You were not allowing folks of color
in, folks who didn't look likeyou on the playing for so legislation had
to be put in place to say, yes, you are going to hire.

(03:20):
Because see we always run into that, Oh we can't find any qualified
candidates, that's nonsense. They're outthere. Oh no, no, no,
we care. Oh we can't findany people of color who are qualified,
that's nonsense. They're out there,so there's plenty to commentate on or
to provide commentary on. This week, I'll just hold my piece. I'll
hold my tongue because the same thingwith the financial aid, the forgiveness piece.

(03:44):
Again, you got to go backto the route first off, cast
should not be that high to beginwith, I'm not necessarily saying someone should
be able to go to college forfree like we do, you know,
our elementary, middle and high schools. I'm not necessarily saying people need to
go to school for free, butI am saying why the costs so dog
on high to begin with? Whyyou know, for you to matricular or
to get through a college degree,it has to cost you almost two hundred

(04:06):
thousand or two hundred and fifty orthree hundred thousand dollars or whatever. So
now this is what this is,because this is what the argument is.
You've now tried to follow the socalled American dreamy, as they say,
run the traditional route, go toschool, go to college, get a
job. Kids are doing that,but when they come out of school,

(04:28):
they're saddled already with hundreds of thousanddollars of debt that must be paid back,
and the salaries are not commisserate withwhat now those loans are. This
is before you, as you comeout of school, you can buy a
house or buy a car, startyour family, or whatever it is that

(04:49):
you want to do. You comeout the door hundreds of thousands of dollars
in debt. I am back inschool now and I'm taking out student loans
and all already I saw the amountand I say, oh, well,
you know that's gonna that's the amountof debt I'm gonna be in for the
rest of my days. And sobecause for me at this age, it's
like if I got another ten twenty, my hope is forty, but I've

(05:10):
had another thirty forty years to go, or somewhere between now and then that
loan will get paid off before akid coming out of school at twenty two
already saddled with two or three hundredthousand dollars worth of student loan debt.
I don't understand why college ought tobe that expensive to begin with. Now
I'm gonna shift conversation on because maybeI wind up using this portion as my

(05:34):
podcast The Mark Medley Show, becausethey're two different things. You got the
Mark Medley show and you have thereading circle, but maybe I'll use this
partition for you know, for theMark Medley show piece. Customer service.
We are in a crazy time herein terms of a constant decrease in customer

(05:55):
service and products, while at thesame time a constant increase in costs and
pricing. I don't know about you, but if you've walked into the supermarket
lately, just about everything that youneed to buy is increase. The inflation,
it's gone up. The prices ofregardless of what you're buying from one

(06:16):
week to the next, has increased. Now at the same time, packaging
is getting smaller. So this Imean, I was in corporate America,
so I understand how corporate thinks.I know how to the exact think they
honestly, we really do think peopleare stupid. They really think people are
not going to notice that you havea smaller container than what you had the
last time you bought it, andyou're paying a higher price. I don't

(06:38):
understand for the life of me,why the entire country, regardless of skin
color, regardless of raised, regardlessof this, is needed, regardless of
sexual preference, regardless anything. Idon't understand why the entire country is not
together protesting these companies, because really, what the companies are saying is,
we don't care. You're gonna buyour product regardless of what we do,

(07:00):
regardless of what we charge you,regardless of the price, regardless of how
bad we treat you, You're stillgoing to spend your money with us.
That's the position these companies are takingit. I don't understand as a country
why we have not in mass startedprotesting and making some noise about this.
I know for a fact, containersare getting smaller now. They may write

(07:23):
whatever the ounces are on the frontof it, don't necessarily believe that.
Don't believe that height Because the containersare getting smaller, the products that you're
buying, you're getting less of,and you're paying more. And we won't
even get into the fact, atleast here in New Jersey, I don't
know what in other states are doing. You have to bring a bag,
and when you go shopping now youdon't even get bags. You have to

(07:46):
bring your own brown bags or whatevercolor they are, to the store with
you. On top of the factthat there are very few live cashiers now,
you have to scan it yourself.Now, I'm cool, And I
was telling my daughter this the otherday. I'm cool with if I go
to the store and you have aself serve line, I have one or
two items, all right, fine, that's quick. Hey, I'm all

(08:07):
for that. I do have anissue though, when you have a basket
full of goods and you have tostand in scan those yourself, bring your
bag to the store, put thesaid items in the bag, and you're
still paying the same price, ifnot more. So. I can even

(08:28):
see if they if to say,you know what, scan your own.
We're gonna take off five percent.We're gonna take off ten percent. Whatever
your order is at the end ofthe day, we're going to take off
ten percent of that because you didthe work yourself. A cashier did not
do that work. You did thework. So you walked around the store,
you shopped, you filled your basket, and now it comes time for

(08:50):
you to pay. You have toscan it yourself. You have to put
it in a bag that you broughtand take it out to your car,
and you're paying the same thing aswhen you were getting the service of the
cashier and a bagger doing that samehole. True for banks, you go
to an ATM take out money,and they charge you anywhere from three dollars

(09:13):
and fifty cents to five dollars totake out your money. So let's say,
for an example, you go tothe ATM and you take out twenty
dollars. When you pull out thatreceipt, it says twenty three fifty or
it says twenty five dollars. Thenthey have the audacity to ask, do
you want a receipt? I willshare with my aunt the other night.
I always take the receipt, whetherI want it or not, because it's

(09:33):
like, listen, you're charging methree fifty to five dollars to take out
my own money, and then you'reexpecting me to save you paper by not
taking a receipt. Oh no,I'm pulling that receipt offer if I don't
do nothing but crumple it up anddrop it in the basket, because somewhere
in there I got to get somethingfor my money. You've just charged me
three dollars and fifty cents to fivedollars to pull out my twenty dollars.

(09:56):
So now I didn't pull out twentydollars, I now lost twenty three fifty
or twenty five dollars. So yes, I am going to pull off that
receipt. When I go to astore, I'm going to get in that
live cashier line. Now, thisis the funny thing about that, because
the line be out the door.I mean, this is again where to
me, I don't think store managersare responsive because if they have any eyes

(10:22):
in their head, they would seehow long these lines and say, you
know what, people really don't likethis self served thing, at least not
a whole lot. I mean somedo fine, but there's a significant number
of people who don't like it,and they're lined up at the live cashier.
That for me, if I wasthe story manuer, just say I
need to get a couple more people, because what you'll have is fourteen to
fifteen to twenty cashier banks and oneperson working only one and the line is

(10:48):
at that one person. And tokick it all off and make matters even
worse, you'll have three or poorpeople standing around trying to look important.
You'll have somebody standing there with aclipboard doing nothing. You'll have a couple
of people acting as if they're foldingclothes or putting stuff on the shelf,
and they're not really doing anything.My point is all these folks could be
working and helping with the customer serviceexperience, because when you check out,

(11:13):
that ought to be the best experienceof your shopping time. That's the time
where the store has the opportunity toreally make you feel valued. That's the
time for the store to have theopportunity to really express their thanks for you
choosing their store to buy your productsin. But that's the most frustrating part
of the experience. Now when youhave to go up and pay, that

(11:35):
has now become the most frustrating partof the experience. And mind you what
I just said, you're going upto pay, You're getting ready to spend
your hard earned money for somebody.That's pretty much saying we don't care about
you because we know you're gonna haveto spend this, and you're going to
spend this with us anyway, Becausethat's pretty much what's they're saying. When
you have a line around the storeand you have one person looking hopeless and

(11:58):
merciless because it's like, oh mygod, I need some help, and
nobody's coming. Nobody's coming to helpnobody. The cavalry is not coming to
go open up another cash register,and any event that it does, that
long line, all of a suddenyou start seeing people in the middle to
the end of the line start runningto the person that says, next person

(12:18):
over here, please. I mean, I've literally been standing on the line
where there's been one the line wrappedaround the store, and many of you.
If you know anything about some stores, especially when they have clothes,
they have hangers that have their colorcoded. They have little knobs on the
hangers to let you know the sizesor what have you. I've literally been
in the store where the poor girlwas ringing people up. The girl standing

(12:41):
next to her was sitting there puttingthese little colors on the top of the
hangars. That was her job tosit there and put the color, and
she sees her colleague. And thenthere was another one standing there fooling around
with the cell phone, and anotherone with the clipboard. So needless to
say, because I have a bigmouth, because I don't have a problem,
especially now I don't have a filter, I don't have a problem with
opening it. I went to theyoung ladies standing around there with cell phone
and a clipboard, saying, howcome you all don't open another cash register,

(13:03):
and you see your colleague, yousee your peers sitting there struggling with
this long line. And the girltells me, because we each have different
jobs, we each have separate jobs. Now, mind you, the separate
job that she was talking about,she wasn't even doing that. And I
can't imagine how much of a separatejob could it be that you could not
stop putting the little red, blueand yellow knobs on a hangar, that

(13:26):
you couldn't stop saying. You knowwhat, I can get back to that,
Let me open up this cash registerand help get this line out of
here. Are you gonna telling methose little tabs, those little red,
green and yellow tabs that go ontop of hangars, was more important than
all those people standing on that line. This is the kind of foolishness I'm
talking about, Just customers are I'vebeen in a store where again, line
wrapped around the store cashier. Cashierover there, unmanned or unwomanned, however

(13:50):
you want to say it, unpersonedstanding in The person walks up, seize
his colleague struggling, because this timeit was two men. Seize his colleague
struggling. He walks behind the counter, where that cash register that is open
is takes a garbage can from underthe counter and turns around and walks away
from the cash register with all usstanding in the line. Look he looked

(14:13):
dead in my eyes because he knewwhat I was thinking, Like, son,
you could have opened up that cashredgy that garbage can wait. But
say, this is the kind ofnonsense we're talking about here in terms of
no regard for the customer. SoI'm to the point, and I've always
been. There's two times I writereviews. If the customer service is extremely
poor, you can rest assured.I'm going to write a review to let

(14:37):
the world know don't go there.If the customer service is extremely good,
which now is an exception to therule, I'm going to write a review
to make sure listen when you makeyour travel plans and make sure you go
to this place. Or if youneed somebody to be a carpenter in your
house, make sure you choose himor her. You need somebody for sighting
or roofing or whatever, you pickthis person. Because this is again,

(14:58):
if the service is horrid lee bad, I'm gonna make sure somebody don't you
do that, because you're gonna go, You're gonna waste your money, You're
gonna get burned. But if it'sextremely good. Because I just did this
this past week. I went awayfor a few days to a bed and
breakfast and the place was outstanding,and I told the proprietor, I am
going to make sure I write youa review. And so I wrote a

(15:18):
review on Google, and I wrotea review on trip Advisor. I understood
now why this place had been receivingfive stars. They lived up to what
they advertised. Now think about that, you, I mean, folks,
living up to what they advertised.Wow, isn't that a new concept?
Actually doing what you say you're gonnado. Because in this particular place,

(15:39):
when I was making the arrangements,I went on that website and I was
looking at the pictures and I calledand I said, does that room look
like what I see here on thewebsite? And the lady who asked the
the phone, she said, oh, yes, yes, it looked just
like what you see is exactly whatSure enough, when I walked in that
room, exactly what I saw onthat website that said exactly what the room
looked like. And the service waspar excellence. So I'm just you know

(16:02):
again in terms of commenta because Ihaven't done commentary in the last couple of
weeks, so you know, it'sall coming out here this morning. But
you know, this ruling with affirmativeaction did not surprise me, not at
all. That's why those particular judgeswere put in place to begin with.
Donald Trump knew exactly what he wasdoing when he put these places, as
well as when George Bush put ClarenceThomas on there. Clarence Thomas was a

(16:23):
win, winning for the for thefolks that of his ilk. Oh you
all keep wanting an African American onthe Supreme Court. Oh, we got
one, but we got one.We got one that is an imposter.
Going back to Narissa's song, isan imposter. We we we put an
imposter on there. So you know, it was like we satisfied our audience.

(16:44):
You got somebody with dark skin onthere, so you can't say we
don't have an African American on theSupreme Court. But all so, George
Bush knew exactly what he was doingwhen he put Clarence Thomas on there,
and certainly Donald Trump, whether heknew what he was doing or not,
he put the folks on there thatwas gonna do exactly what they did a
couple of days ago, that wasgoing to shoot down anything that had anything
to do with helping other folks,with helping other people. Affirmative action shot

(17:11):
down. And you can rest assuredas you hear my voice wherever you are,
there are other things that are inplace that eventually are going to be
overturned as well, because that wasthe design, that was the system.
These things are systematic. This isnot happenstance. This is not circumstance.
These are intentional and consciously designed,systematic decisions to do exactly what they are

(17:38):
doing. Well, okay, sothat's my, you know, my diatribe
for this morning. That's my dialogue, that's my you know, opportunity to vent