{"id":44445,"date":"2023-08-04T10:24:46","date_gmt":"2023-08-04T14:24:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ifintechworld.com\/news\/a-con-edison-mechanic-threatened-with-razor-blades-why-dealing-with-the-public-is-getting-more-treacherous\/"},"modified":"2023-08-04T10:24:48","modified_gmt":"2023-08-04T14:24:48","slug":"a-con-edison-mechanic-threatened-with-razor-blades-why-dealing-with-the-public-is-getting-more-treacherous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ifintechworld.com\/?p=44445","title":{"rendered":"A Con Edison mechanic threatened with razor blades? Why dealing with the public is getting more treacherous."},"content":{"rendered":"
Serafino Lopez is the man Brooklyn residents see on their doorstep after the power goes out.<\/p>\n
The Con Edison mechanic in subsurface construction has to employ his technical skills to detect electrical problems, and get the lights back on.<\/p>\n
\n
Ever since the pandemic, Lopez increasingly needs to resort to his other tool box. That\u2019s defusing customer anxiety and aggression \u2014 especially if he\u2019s following up after another crew member couldn\u2019t fix the problem, or if he needs to tow a car down the block to access a manhole.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen a shift in people\u2019s thoughts, people\u2019s actions,\u201d said Lopez. \u201cYou could see people are more high strung, a little bit more angry and frustrated, a little bit more nervous. I try to be as understanding as possible and just kind of relate to their problem. I try to ensure them the issues are going to be resolved because I\u2019m here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, Lopez and his crew get harangued by passersby about the cost of utility bills and interrogated about disconnects. More people disregard traffic cones and drive through his worksites. Around a year ago, some guys threatened him with razor blades, Lopez said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t seen it wild like this for a long time,\u201d said the 38-year-old, who was born and raised in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n
Face-to-face customer interactions have gotten tougher. Just ask flight attendants. COVID-19 heightened these confrontations, with worker-customer altercations over masks or people checking vaccine cards at the front door. But while the pandemic fades, the greater chance for customer rudeness \u2014 or worse \u2014 remains, say frontline workers and experts.<\/p>\n
Lopez is far from the only public-facing worker who walks the streets to notice a change in how strangers treat him on the job. Last week, the Internal Revenue Service said its revenue officers would stop making most surprise visits to taxpayers\u2019 homes to ask questions about unpaid taxes or unfiled tax returns.<\/p>\n
The decades-long tax collection tactic was curbed in part to undercut scammers who pose as the taxman, IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said. But it was also a precaution for IRS staffers who had become more apprehensive about the trips, he added.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n \u201c<\/span>\u2018Knocking on someone\u2019s door today is a different scenario than it was 10 or 15 years ago.\u2019\u201d<\/span>\n <\/p>\n
\n \u2014 RS Commissioner Danny Werfel<\/span> \n <\/small><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know that that\u2019s unique or specific to the IRS, but knocking on someone\u2019s door today is a different scenario than it was 10 or 15 years ago,\u201d Werfel told reporters. \u201cThere have been significant reports from IRS employees of home visits where they have felt unsafe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Doreen Greenwald occasionally experienced some uneasy moments during the nearly two decades she worked as an IRS revenue officer, sometimes visiting homes and businesses.<\/p>\n
Conversations on a porch or an invitation inside were common, said Greenwald, who worked at the IRS for 35 years total and is now national executive vice president of the National Treasury Employees Union.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the years though, there was more and more scrutiny, where people would say \u2018I don\u2019t know why you would be here,\u2019 \u2018I don\u2019t believe you are who you say you are.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
She\u2019s heard stories of IRS colleagues being chased off properties with dogs on the loose, guns that were brandished or shot in the air \u201cand things of that nature to let you know that your presence is not welcome.\u201d There were times when Greenwald was threatened on the phone and to her face, she said.<\/p>\n
While IRS workers are largely ending their unannounced trips, the livelihoods of people like Jillina Kwiatkowski, a process server, depend on surprise in-person visits \u2014 and they\u2019re becoming more fraught.<\/p>\n
Her job requires her to formally deliver freshly-filed lawsuits for outstanding credit-card debts, foreclosures, landlord-tenant disputes, personal injuries, divorces, child custody and more.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n
\u201cAfter 23 years, it still can be a little bit nerve-racking. You don\u2019t know what you are going to find on the other side of the door that you are knocking on. You always have to keep your guard up,\u201d said Kwiatkowski, owner of Smart Serve Process Serving in the suburbs of Buffalo, N.Y. and first vice president of the National Association of Professional Process Servers.<\/p>\n
Kwiatkowski has honed her approach. She stays calm and her demeanor is \u201cvery apologetic.\u201d Kwiatkowski always backs into dead-end driveways if she needs to exit quickly and she never fills out paperwork in her car after service, in case the recipient decides to vent.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s never a great time for people to learn they\u2019re getting sued, Kwiatkowski said. But background stressors make it more difficult to be the bearer of bad news. Doing her job after 9\/11 was tough. Certainly during COVID-19 and with inflation, \u201cdefinitely tempers rise.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt probably has gotten worse. As the economy has changed over the years, people\u2019s attitudes have changed over the years,\u201d Kwiatkowski said. \u201cI\u2019ve never had a huge amount of problems. Have I heard of any uptick in problems with process servers? Yes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, Kwiatkowski has been pushed from porches, brought to tears by an off-duty police officer and once pecked by a turkey. \u201cThe thing chased me, and they run fast. And they hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Help wanted, conflict-resolution skills needed<\/h2>\n
\u201cIncivility has risen dramatically over the last couple decades. But really over the last few years, it\u2019s skyrocketed,\u201d said Christine Porath, a UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School professor who studies the toll of incivility on companies and their employees, and works with companies that are dealing with it in their ranks and among customers.<\/p>\n
When Porath polled workers across the world in 25 industries last year, 78% said they experienced incivility at work at least once a month. Also, 78% believed bad customer behavior directed at workers was less common five years ago.<\/p>\n
She mainly links people lashing out to increased stress, negativity and uncertainty in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
The prospect intensifies with home visits where people have a stranger on their turf, and are on guard for fraudsters. Fraying community connections and fading confidence in institutions like government, courts and big business also reduce trust, she said.<\/p>\n
Nastiness is always a problem because it can be \u201ccontagious,\u201d Porath said. But its continuing rise is especially worrying when so much of the economy revolves around service for customers, clients, patients and the public, she noted.<\/p>\n
During the so-called great resignation \u2014 the dash for better employment while the economy bounced back from COVID-19 \u2014 Porath said she \u201cheard a lot of people transitioning from frontline job to back-office work\u201d in order to spare themselves the customer-facing agitation.<\/p>\n
As technology and automation keep changing the nature of work, people who know how to deal with tense customers and heated emotions will have one very appealing skill set for the future, Porath said.<\/p>\n
When she exited a Costco \n COST, \n -0.25%<\/bg-quote> \n the other day, a worker\u2019s warm \u201cthank you\u201d stuck with her.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf organizations knew that matters to people, the human touch, the human element, I think that we would see that valued. \u2026If you can provide the situations where people feel that more deeply, I think that\u2019s fantastic. You\u2019re going to increase the chance of customer loyalty dramatically.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018It gets tough at times\u2019<\/h2>\n
A store greeting is different from a door knock to access a home\u2019s basement or to serve a lawsuit.<\/p>\n
Lopez loves his job. \u201cI provide a service to the public and I have a team of brothers that are behind me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lopez, a shop steward and member of the Utility Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO, credits ConEd for offering the needed equipment and support. But the chance for difficult interactions is a grind, he said. \u201cIt gets tough at times to always deal with this on a daily basis,\u201d Lopez told MarketWatch.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, we have seen an increase in threats and crimes against our workers in the last several years. Those with thoughts of assaulting a Con Edison worker need to know it is a felony and can result in a prison sentence. Our policy is zero-tolerance of this behavior,\u201d said ConEd spokesman Allan Drury.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also a felony in New York State to assault a process server, Kwiatkowski noted. While president of the state affiliate of the national process-server organization, she lobbied legislators to bump the crime from a misdemeanor to felony in 2016.<\/p>\n
Kwiatkowski says process servers offer the constitutionally vital first steps of legal access and due process so people tell their side of the story in a court of law. <\/p>\n
\u201cUntil they can guarantee that the person you are trying to serve can receive a paper electronically \u2014 and there is no way that they can guarantee that right now \u2014 we are going to be going knocking on people\u2019s doors,\u201d Kwiatkowski said. \u201cSometimes it\u2019s a scary job, but we take pride in it.<\/p>\n
Lopez also knows his work is vital for the community. \u201cThere\u2019s no one on this planet that can work faster in an emergency than us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n