"To Stream or to Batch" - a response

Responding to our guest post of a few days ago (“To Stream or to Batch”), I hate to say this, but might this streaming and batching stuff be “generational”? (Why does that always feel uncomfortable, as if the real meaning is “You’re just too old”?) I do admit, though, that my generation couldn’t possibly have streamed communication as young people do today. Consider, for example, how children, teens and college students used to communicate with each other in perfect batches. (Warning: If you’re a millennial, this might frighten you.)

Guest Feature by Dale L. Oldham

I'll mirror Malcolm Gladwell and write about the obvious. Clearly Mr. Gladwell isn't accountable for my resentment over his success, because countless textbooks have likewise stated the obvious, but that gentleman has become famous and rich just because he can label indisputable phenomena (give me a break: "tipping point"??), provide countless supporting examples, entertain me and leave me seething that he wrote it before I did.

Recently I was cleaning out old – really, really old – files on my computer, the kind that, had they been food, would now be covered with mold and crawling with bugs. Old files! And I came across this story I wrote – oh, probably 12 or 13 years ago. I never did anything with it; maybe I wrote it just to vent. Who knows? It’s a pretty good story, though, so I want to share it with you. Pretty unbelievable, actually. It’s about customer service gone very, very wrong.