Welcome back to Second Thought, where we dissect the zeitgeist—by which I mean the radicalizing power of nightmarish customer-service systems, the possible pitfalls of taking Christ off the cross and putting him on a podcast, the great aesthetic evil of 3D movies, and more.
Several years ago my Etsy account was hijacked. Somehow, someone was able to log in, change my password, and start listing what I assume were fraudulent items for sale. This is how I discovered that the sixth most popular e-commerce site in the world does not have a customer-support line. Nor does it have a publicly listed customer-support email. The only way to contact the Brooklyn-born arts and crafts marketplace is to log in to your account—which, obviously, I could not do.
This Kafkaesque situation filled me with fury. I considered buying a small amount of stock in the company to get access to its shareholder meetings. I tried to file an Federal Trade Commission complaint but couldn’t figure out how the website worked. I guessed email addresses. I responded angrily to Etsy’s marketing posts. I cyberstalked Etsy executives and slid into their DMs. I heard nothing from the company.
Something must have worked because eventually, after a few months, I got an email saying the stolen account had been suspended. My ordeal was over but not forgotten. I think about it all the time. Especially when I’m watching The Chair Company, HBO’s absolutely great new series—justly renewed for a second season this week—about a man who uncovers a vast conspiracy after a humiliating experience at work.
Our hero is Ron Trosper (Tim Robinson), a neurotic project manager. After a chair collapses underneath him onstage during an important company-wide meeting, Ron tries to file a complaint with Tecca, the company that made the chair. The complaint hotline is staffed by a third-party company that refuses to connect him with Tecca. He finds an address for Tecca’s headquarters, only to discover that the building is an empty warehouse containing nothing more than a copier with reams of printed pornographic material. Soon after, Ron is assaulted by a man who tells him to stop looking into the chair company.
