Yet Another Example of Dehumanizing Corporate Double Speak

Every two weeks I have to call Baxter, the dialysis supply company, to place my next order. About a month ago I noticed that there was a new recorded message that played while I was on hold:

"We want to process your order as efficiently as possible. If you are calling to stop or suspend your dialysis supplies or to request a cycler pickup, you do not need to provide an explanation or reason."

Whenever I'm confronted with such careful language, I wonder, "What is the subtext here?" Clearly, the only reason someone would discontinue supply deliveries and no longer need the dialysis machine (a.k.a. cycler) would be one of the following:

1. She received a transplant.
2. She switched to hemodialysis.
3. She died.
4. She is discontinuing dialysis because she can no longer take living like this anymore. She is in fact ending her life by discontinuing treatment.

So then the question becomes "Why can't the clerk hear this information?" If the patient did in fact receive a transplant, why wouldn't the clerk want to share in the patient's boundless joy? If the patient were switching to hemodialysis (the kind of dialysis that is administered at a clinic by technicians, not at home by the patient), that wouldn't require much more than a sentence of explanation. Hardly something that would thwart efficiency. So, it must be that the order clerks are uncomfortable with hearing reasons 3 and 4.

I asked the clerk who took my order about the new message. At first she talked of efficiency, but then she worked around to saying the same thing as I had thought, only putting the onus on the family of the deceased--they are the ones, not the clerks, who are uncomfortable.

Isn't it too bad that we live in a society in which we buffer ourselves from such basic human interactions! What a much healthier country this might be if we looked at death, not hid it away like it was an unforgiveable social stigma that we might catch! How wonderful if a grieving family or a hopeless dialysis patient could receive a kind word from an order clerk. Who knows, that little interchange of kindness could possibly give the patient a ray of hope and she might reconsider #4.

You never know how you touch people, but you must first touch. More and more we live in a world in which we build walls that prevent connection or make it incredibly awkward. That's why, at every turn, dehumanizing corporate double speak has to be called out, challenged, and recognized for what it is--dehumanizing.