Canceling productivity

If you’ve ever tried to cancel just about anything, you probably know how challenging it can be. The company doesn’t want to lose that revenue from you, so it tries to make it really hard for you to walk away. The subscription model economy is especially nefarious in making it difficult to cancel. Having spent five years in the tech start-up space, I can tell you the lengths that companies will go to make it as hard as possible for you to cancel your subscription. It’s literally built into the business model of subscription-based services.

There were many things that my partner, Jake, and I resisted in the start-up world. Nefarious cancellation policies were one. It was one of the many balancing acts we attempted — making money while honoring the individual on the other side. Recognizing their humanity while also recognizing our need to pay for our time, talent, and development of our product. We never got Cascadin to a place where we really needed to be concerned about retention (the business statistic for a tech company that is a good indicator of success) so we never needed to test out how effective our system was for canceling. I don’t know if we make it hard enough for someone to think twice about canceling while not pissing them off. That’s the line to walk.

What I do know is that my experience of canceling things can be very frustrating, even when I know and understand the tactics being used. I saw this in full force recently when I went to cancel my mom’s internet.

Her former internet provider had a place in the online account portal to “cancel service”, which made me very happy because I never want to speak with someone on the phone. I’m a millennial, after all. I should have known better.

It was a bait and switch because after answering some questions online, you are directed to call the company to finish the cancellation. They generously give you a reference number so you don’t have to answer the three questions you’ve already answered online when you call.

I resigned myself to the call, knowing it was going to be painful. Knowing they were going to try to convince us to not cancel a now completely unnecessary service.

They did not disappoint.

With my mom sitting next to me, we called the company and spoke with a lovely person who was very nice and understanding. Of course, I can help you cancel this account and I’ll do so in a way to keep a smile on your face, she says.

Thirty minutes later, we finally canceled the account, and the service was cut off. All in all, it wasn’t too bad, but it wasn’t bad because I understood the tactics she was using to get us to not cancel the account. It was all psychology, and specifically the tactics of inciting fear and shaming the possibility of unproductiveness.

Which is why I’m sharing this story.

We can’t even cancel an internet service without being shamed for lack of productivity, even when we have a (better) internet provider already.

Here’s how it went:

• [Us]: We want to cancel this service because the account holder (my dad) died* and now my mom is moving in with us and we already have internet that we’re happy with.
• [Company]: I’m sorry to hear about your loss. I’m happy to help you. What is the new address that she is moving to?
• [Us]: (Hesitantly) It’s…(gives the address).
• [Company]: Oh, I see that we do provide service to your area. Are you sure you don’t want to make the switch?
• [Us]: Yes, we’re sure. Thank you.
• [Company]: Out of curiosity, what do you use your internet for?
• [Us]: Well, my husband and I work from home and we also use it for streaming.
• [Company]: I see. And how often do you lose your internet? That can’t be good if you have an outage when you’re working from home. What do you do then?
• [Us]: Considering I can count on one hand the number of times we’ve had an outage, I think we’re doing okay.
• [Company]: Well, you know, I work from home and it’s really great for me to have a second internet provider because then I don’t skip a beat when it comes to my work.

By now, I see where this is really going and I’m obviously not having it. I remain polite and firm in my goal of canceling the service. The agent eventually does stop pushing, but even at the very end, after the cancellation is complete, she reminds me of how helpful it would be for my productivity if I had a secondary internet provider and that they have excellent coverage in our area.

All I can do is shake my head. After the fact, I started to realize the full extent of what that tactic was doing: shaming me into getting a second service so I don't lose productivity because of an internet outage.

Shaming me for the possibility of losing productivity.

Shaming me into spending money to prevent the possibility of losing productivity.

Not even the actual loss of productivity; just the possibility.

Yay for capitalism!

Our society is so wrapped up in productivity that companies design their marketing tactics, including retention and reducing cancellations, around the shame of not being productive.

My company was guilty of that to a degree.

While we transitioned away from marketing that, in hindsight, feels shaming, it’s hard to be a productivity tech tool and not use those tactics. How else were we ever going to get people to start using our tool?

I clearly never came up with the right answer, and while Cascadin still exists, we never found the path forward to make Cascadin profitable.

My point with this is that shaming people for being unproductive is a tactic that works in marketing because our society teaches us from a very young age that if we aren’t being productive, we aren’t good.

We’ve conflated productivity with morality.

I am only a good person if I’m a productive person.

I see this happen all the time around me. If I’m resting during the day and my partner comes along, my initial reaction is almost always to start doing something — anything — that looks productive. With my mom here, if I’m doing something in the kitchen or with the laundry, she inevitably wants to find something that she can do too, even though there is no need. When I walk in on my partner at his desk and he is taking a mental break from code by looking at his phone, he immediately puts it down and a sense of guilt washes over him.

We all do this.

We all react to being caught “doing nothing” because we’ve been taught that means we aren’t being good.

The truth, however, is that I am good even when I’m not being “productive.” My morality, my goodness, has nothing to do with my productivity.

Some people will disagree with that statement. Some people find it offensive when I say “You are enough.” They think that means they aren’t. That I am telling them they are in fact the opposite.

I had this happen recently at a workshop I led.

Hearing the phrase “you are enough” to them meant that they were deficient in some way. The word, enough, to them, implied a failing, a sense that they could be doing more and that I was somehow letting them off the hook for their responsibilities. They did not like it at all.

It was an interesting perspective that I had no answer to. Nothing I said to them could break them of the mindset they held that hearing “you are enough” is a moral failing.

They’ve tied up their worth, their value, completely with their productivity.

They would have absolutely been susceptible to the marketing ploy of needing a secondary internet provider in the event their first had an outage because it would help keep them productive at all times. And thus keep them morally good at all times.

And that just feels like an exhausting way to live.

*It turns out, it can take years to remove a deceased person’s name from all the accounts that exist. 🤦🏻‍♀️