Sorry without the power to fix it

The woman on the customer service line is genuinely sorry. You can hear it. She listens, repeats the problem back, and says she understands how tiring this must be. Then she explains that she cannot refund the order, cannot send a technician before Thursday, and cannot change anything at all.

She has been given the blame without any of the levers. It is a hard seat. Caring all day about problems you are not allowed to solve wears people down, and it is a large part of why those jobs empty out so quickly.

Somewhere above her is often the opposite seat. Someone who writes the refund rules and sets the technician schedule, and never hears a single caller. When it goes wrong, the fault belongs to the season, the supplier, the market. People in that seat are easy to recognise. They complain more than anyone.

Put the levers and the blame in the same hands and you get the arrangement that works. The person who can change the rule is the person who answers for it. When something breaks, they feel it, and they are able to act, so it breaks less often.

Most of us, most of the time, sit in the fourth corner: no power to change the thing, and no blame when it fails. It is comfortable. It is also the bargain quietly on offer everywhere: be a part rather than a person, and nobody will hold you to anything.

That bargain is optional more often than it seems. I usually get some say in which seat I take, who I work for, and which businesses get my money.