Opinion | True Hong Kong service won’t be found in an order-it-yourself app

Perhaps I am a dinosaur but I feel we do not need an app for this and that. The other day I was leaving a supermarket to return to the shopping centre car park. Usually, I present my receipt to get free parking by handing this over to a friendly attendant, who would stamp it and record my licence plate number. I would leave with a smile, and it’s all over in less than 10 seconds unless I chat awhile.

But the desk was gone and I now needed to download an app, which would take my licence plate number and require a photo of my receipt. This did not go well. After about 10 minutes, I finally got everything installed properly, then had to retake the photo a few times before I was able to get my free parking.

It will be easier the next time but it was still a frustrating, soul-destroying experience. I confess I got quite angry. It got me thinking, and not just about what I would have done if I’d forgotten my phone, which is not an uncommon occurrence.

Increasingly, the responsibility and effort of doing everyday stuff is being passed to the consumer while the establishment offering the service abrogates the option of human service more frequently on the altar of putative efficiency and cost-cutting. As customers, we are being made to work harder and do more in ever more sterile, less human and increasingly tech-based interactions.

I have railed against this sort of thing for years, starting with the automated phone options of “service” companies where I seem to need to press a dozen keys to eventually get into a call queue. It invariably takes a long time to connect to someone, who usually is not even in the country and whose grasp of the language may be less than optimal.

But my latest experience made me angrier than would be reasonable. Why? I think it unleashed much pent-up frustration about the global service trend.