I remember seeing Dune in the cinema in ’84. And then I sat down and read the book, and then I read all the other books. You can see how Dune influenced a whole slew of fantasy and science fiction – its codes and its combats. Ritual combat is an important part of nerd culture, as is the idea that you have to let go of your ego – your fear of loss – in order to master it.
I was well into D&D by then.
But there were parts of the D&D rules that never really came up in everyday play. Like the psionic system.
Here was a ritualised combat system where you chose attacks and defences based upon what you thought your opponent might do. Your goal was to protect your own psionic strength and whittle away your opponents.
Retailers have their own form of ritualised combat.
It’s called customer service.
If you have ever complained about a thing you’ll know it takes a certain degree of ego. You have to decide whether it is worth your time and your ego investment to pursue a thing. Your soup may be lukewarm, but do you really care enough to complain? And then there is a question of how you complain.
Just as in D&D there are psionic attacks and defences, so there are in customer service.
You get more with honey than with vinegar as my mother used to say. But then companies got wise to that. That’s why the Karen’s of this world exist – they have already mentally gone through a checklist in their mind of low key responses which got them nothing, so they power in with a fully fledged ‘can I speak to the manager?’ psionic blast.
They unleash the full force of their ego on some hapless assistant, because they know they can’t defend against it and they have no power to action a reasonable request.
