Just when I thought my outrage account might be overdrawn, I discovered new reserves after reading “Thousands lose food benefits due to disconnected calls, lawsuit says” (Metro, Sept. 28). As frustrating as it is for most of us when we find ourselves mired in the swamp of automated prompts offered up by our insurance companies, cellphone providers, and others (“In a few words, tell us what you are calling about” ... “I’m sorry, I didn’t get that. In a few words …”), we generally emerge unscathed, other than a half-hour lost and a spike in blood pressure. When these systems don’t work for me, my family isn’t going hungry as a result, as is the case for recipients navigating the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
I have an idea: What if every department head in state government, in their first days on the job, were given a script of likely consumer problems and required to get answers through the agency’s online or telephone systems? Perhaps the ante could be upped by requiring them to do so with the sound of crying kids in the background, or while on the bus on the way to work.
I wish Michael Cole, commissioner of the state’s Department of Transitional Assistance, the very best should the day come when he leaves state government to “seek other opportunities,” as they say. To whomever might replace him, I say: Do better.
Barbara Donlon, Stoneham