Long-distance strivers

Neither Hippies nor Yuppies, I just wanted to skip some Maslow Hierarchy steps and get to the meat (self-actualizing) of things. Thanks to student-loan deferred years, I volunteered in Asia and Africa – front-ending my giving – energy, time and com-passion (as opposed to wait and accumulate spare change and spare time to donate “stale” leisure seeking years to charity work overseas). It’s my self-funded version of Peace Corps “ask not” – what the suffering world can do for you…

Upon re-entry, I had to start over i.e. $100-suit $50-car, hitting the pavement: Sales, then Alternate Sales Channel, Multi-Cultural Direct Sales, Revenue Assurance and Train the trainers in Long-Distance Telephony and Voice-mail system with front-desk folks gave me the look.

As the looming Y2K scare approached, heralding the imminent death of long distance, we were all pumped with adrenaline: even elevators and microwave ovens seemed way too slow. Wall Street was rumbled as robber barons prowled, scouted and land-grabed the Next Big Thing: WorldCom bought MCI number 2 with hyper stocks, ATT and British Telecom joined in a Concert, Time-Warner ” got email” from AOL; all the while MCI held on to Vint Cerf of Distributed Architecture – still is in and of full use today in Ashburn, VA (Money – still – Coming In). Information and data pipe.

Everyone tried to connect the world via whatever communication technology: Telephony, VoIP and Dial Around. The same mission and model of Meta and Big Tech today, albeit under the shadow of globalization and its discontent. The more technology (the way), the more reluctant we call on our fellow human being (the will). Instead, we become test subjects for the new “distributed” experiment, with robot-calls, bot-mail and rabbit holes. Permission and subscription marketing. I agree.

People are different yet universal in their love for families, respect for the elderly and an uncompromising commitment to educating younger generations. They may say change is the only constant but actually, it’s human nature that is: reciprocity for small acts of kindness, shared tips for mutual survival, say one thing and do another, hence hope of an eternity with more fairness and fulfillment.

At MCI, our group (International Market Direct) was rolled under Direct Sales (US). Quarterly meetings held all over the country. By design, I was cross-trained deep and wide: even with company shirt in a 4K run, covering all the bases with micro targeting: Little Tokyo, Little Saigon, Little Havana despite their undercurrent universality e.g. traditional diet, spiritual ties and clan loyalty, albeit scattered and extended family with ocean apart.

So ingrained and ingratiated that on my vacation to London, I drifted unconsciously towards its Chinatown out of curiosity (even Chinatown NYC is different from Chinatown SF per regional adaptation and accent).

Quite an occupational hazard!

It is lucky to belong to a sub-culture group let alone a multi ones.

Cultures mastery requires deep diving and broad strokes, context and nuances. Even today, Shadows in Paradise and Netherland are required reading for me. Kindness can be found in unlikely places, in different people and their view of sports and heroes. Homo sapiens to homo sapiens.

Despite its high wall of steel (and papers) – I owe this to Remarque, the United States, for one reason or another, has been graced and enriched with long-distance strivers, When Corporate comes knocking, small ethnic business owners took notice. A wide range of them, embedded in their community with native mastery.

On a typical “sales call”, I walked them through the “indemnity clause”, explained “Acts of God” and made sure their sales reps don’t wear MCI uniforms (since they were another layer away from a W-9 outsourcing contract). We provided the backhauling and backbone switching capabilities; they on-the-ground mouthpieces. Most were leaders in their respective community, operated out of makeshift “embassies” of rumors and gossips: Pakistanis, Eastern European, Chinese/Vietnamese and a garden-variety of Latinos under the Hispanic umbrella.

Often clustered along coastal cities, foreign folks turned sales agents were more at home in warmer weather and thrived better in urban face-to-face culture (port of entry), unlike European emigrant counterparts who at first had crowded in Northeast tenements.

By getting to know these beautiful strangers, I learned not just geography and demography, but also psychology – underneath their tough bearded facade – a soft longing for their homeland, roots and soul cuisine. Long-distance telephony serves as a bridge, reconnecting hearts across the pond (very much as depicted by Michael Corleone who went into hiding in Sicily, leveraging his father’s hide-away from the pursuit of rival gangs and the long arms of justice).

You may say the US is a melting pot or a salad bowl. You may say it’s a synthetic country or a syncretistic society. Yes, indeed, but you got to “serve somebody” like in a Dylan line.

People called themselves “American communication agency” to mask their foreignness or P.J (initial-only) to abbreviate extremely long un-Anglicized last names; all to avoid erecting unneeded barriers to buying. Once I visited an office in the now-no-more Twin Towers and guess what: outside the door: s/t s/t American, but inside it’s a Chinese outfit seeking outsourcing contracts.

Broadband excess breeds splintered off channels and nodes, and gave rise to narrow casting, just as once predicted by the likes of Alvin Toffler we all read in college (and now, infinite numbers of creators and publishers called yout-Ubers and Ubers).

It’s hard for newcomers to frictionlessly and fluidly fit into our socially opened slots – members only society – (even at the DMV, with updated software, one is lucky to obtain a driver license within a month). Now, with available bandwidth, the melting pot slowly dissolves to make place for a digital salad bowl – Hollywood and Bollywood, TikTok and Twitter.

Their journey to Paradise was paved not with gold, but with more paperwork. We, the agent recruiter, was of no exception. More filing e.g. FCC 214, like corporate lawyers hustling for pre-paid legal contracts. With a Telecommunication license, they could privately brand their bills (without knowing on this side of the Internet, everybody can be an Alex Jones).

The so-called “others”: unspoken, invisible and dismissed as irrelevant, have conveniently been cast in shady light. Villains used to be white bounty hunters – De Niro’s Midnight Train (or of mixed-race gangsters e.g. Jeff Goldblum in Death Wish before Big Chill).

Immigration (trailing theaters of war which moved around the globe) evolves to include and induct more folks from different countries of origin. Then Hollywood took notice. In the name of realism, casting agencies (follow the vein of clinical trial trail) add a tat of darker-skin tone for antagonist (just crank up the dolly to make them look small and devious), e.g. in Trading Places, John Landis upended this stereotype by placing Eddie Murphy way low, as Eddie pulled an “Eddie” on two beat cops – by pretending to be a blind and crippled VN vet.

Go ahead, make my day. Just “a few dollars more”.

Lately that pendulum swings back with “Everything Everywhere all at once”… whose nominated Oscar best support actor says” Don’t give up on your dream” (the American dream i.e. better FDA, school and traffic safety). Netflix certainly cast a wider net (as of this edit, they cross-package w/ Hulu and others).

While get-away cars get smaller, bad guys grow darker. Back in “Dog Day afternoon”, or The Chase, robbers used to ask for a bus (to transport banking hostages to the airport). Now a days, they upgrade to a chopper.

People in the field (back to sales agent) behave differently: less formal. No appointment necessary. Just drop in unannounced. One agent even doubled up as a pizza man, while another sold lavender perfumes for supplemental income. While crossing a street of San Francisco, I was flanked by two tall Croatians: one with no hair, the other lots of it. All three of us at different times, refugees of a distant conflict; yet none with “flowers in their hair “. Wall Street whiz met Main Street smart (just follow Mike Douglas filmography from Summer Tree to Wall Street to Falling Down).

Between corporate (Wall St) expectations and market (multicultural marketing) demand, we strived. Pull and push. Riding two horses everywhere all at once.

Our group grew stronger, smarter and swifter. During the Chinese/Vietnamese New Year season of events, I did not sleep for a month, knowing the revenue base acquired per rule 78, will balloon to a hefty fiscal year (while co-existed with a nagging fear that tech ride itself per Wall Street greed would not last long).

We also had a “charge the bunker “mentality, to take down the incumbent (only to see its grass grow back) like a David against the Goliath (ATT). BTW, MCI “Jack the Giant slayer” used to tape the sole of his shoes so they wouldn’t flap. Microwave Communications Inc had its start with installing “microwave equipment” to connect Chicago-St Louis-route truckers. In a published story, he was reportedly shivering in Windy-City cold – without a coat – hence easily blended in as “one of us” (when trying to make copies of ATT documents for court filing) I could relate to this, schooling and shivering near Joliet for two years.

Telephony (grandfathered by Telegraph) itself has been replaced by the Internet, which in turn, bows down to generative AI and Chat GPT, Nvidia and Intel (fintech, biotech and infotech), Amazon & Apple chips and TSMC chips.

Back then, Microsoft bought out everybody yet missed out the rise of TCP/IP (instead, it bought out Skype and Nokia). Everybody is into AI now. With Anglicized names, preferably feminine to mask the more “male” hardware behind it. At the cost of our taxpayers and past invention (OSI model which enabled physical and network layers, to make app one possible).

I learned then and now, that Karma run across cultures and times while people strive and sacrifice for next generations (law-abiding, tax-paying high achievers), in movies as in real life (Michael’s line:” just as I thought I am ready to…”mainstream”…they pull me right back in ” i.e. gunning down his little girl outside on the steps of the concert hall, Coppola’s own real life daughter.)

I also know first-generation businessmen cheated and evaded tax, all cash under-the-table. Supermarkets of exotic foods with no Superman’s watching eyes – often opened the back doors to long-distance callers and cash suppliers at night (time difference, cash and carry). Since we were in the possession of call details: date, duration and destination, we just factored them in as promotional cost of doing business – necessary to grease our day-time deals (to secure good locations). Data rich versus data poor, East West, North and South shores.

People cried, argued and screamed, broke up and made up over the phone as if higher octave and louder voice will better solve problems at home while full-timing abroad (imagine the same with the Pentagon and that Colonel with a bullhorn played by Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now) or the way protective mothers (Claudine) yelling at their kids over the ocean waves.

By running agents in the field, I crisscrossed the invisible line, with English as my sling shot; knowing full well across the table sat prospects who had been conditioned to self-editorialize per harsh upbringing. It takes one to know one. Those social tests can only be overcome with time and trust. Some scholars call this “weapons of the weak” e.g. time, patience, tolerance and endurance.

In looking forward, I hope you do visit an ethnic restaurant (Afghan or Somalian) or travel to a foreign port (like the Fonz currently in Dublin, straight out of the AARP cover page) or locally get to know a Syrian family (with a young girl volunteering at nearby community health center in hopes of getting on its medical payroll) – As long as the lemon trees still grow.

Watch Bill Murray’s Rock the Kasbah and put yourself in the shoes of that brave girl who secretly rehearses:” Oh baby baby it’s wide world”.

The road from Main Street to Wall Street, from back door to front door, from obtaining an alien number to getting a Social Security number, lay myriads of obstacles. Both corporate and small business want to thrive, both recognize the 2-thousand-pound gorilla: the new robotic reality and an army of W-9 sellers on eBay and Amazon.

AI works the alley, providing “ghost work” to extract human expertise on behalf of its Wall Street lords. We’re transitioning from face2face, one-on-one conversation to a many-to-many society, with AWS and the likes, exploiting and extracting every venue every minute of every day. Prime or non-prime, from OPM to Other People’s Time (sharing economy’s prosumers e.g. self-service in the name of taming inflation, yet helping behemoths build their towers of Babel – w/ Mechanical Turk – ever green, ever learning and improving).

It (technological society) prides on being efficient and infallible, in hopes of helping helpless human connect; by bits and bi-nary data, while analog human- in all colors, shapes and penchants for irrationality drift further apart as hidden costs and unintended consequense.. Miscommunication and its discontent (when will wealth ever trickle down – except only for the rung just below the top 1 per cent per some studies e.g. the original Chef at Apple HQ). Modernity always plays to win, cultures of the West, and cut-throat labor/raw resources of the Rest.

Not long ago, kids from East Europe drove Beamers after hours on their keyboards, pretending to be someone else to influence election in the US. An in-place, reverse assault without a need to get in line to fill out tons of forms and paperwork as early immigrants.

I could have enjoyed a longer telephony life (unlike my predecessors of Baby Bells). But then, the journey is the reward. Despite our differences and no matter what some may say to self-elevate at someone else’s expenses, America will always reach for the stars, seek new heights and retain decent standards, while not trying to solve crisis abroad in cookie approach and hopes that problems at home somehow self- dissipate.

America has nursed its wound, has been “torn between two lovers” since LBJ. Now, more aids, no boots to Ukraine. Time has un-cubed and uncuffed people this side of the Atomic Bomb. Have you noticed both Zelensky and Zuckerberg are always in their T-shirts? Quite an optic contrast to Yalta conference (where three leaders posed in coat for Peace messaging).

The long-tail nature of our Internet allows initial divisive social media. While data over the distance reaches near zero cost (given ample broadband connectivity) students of cross-cultures know the hardest gap to bridge is the last few inches between people. Judy Woodruff has been following this story across America, in the tradition of Charles Kuralt and Studs Terkel.

That’s how I felt working as an agent runner in pre-internet era: breathless and sleepless, juggling multiple balls in the air and stressed out in LA traffic. Multi-cultural markets don’t congregate conveniently downtown with paid parking. We could not “text” our agents to delay an appointment since no one at the time had an I-phone or an App.

I often wonder what kind of a penniless masochist it would take to volunteer in Asia and Africa only to come home working for Corporate America (paid off student loan debt by spreading in all four). Between two irreconcilable and irritating worlds lie shadows and stones on which strange names finally are spelled out in full and in original forms.

Names once abbreviated to not hinder the flow and fluidity of technology, commerce and progress. Hippies, Yuppies, Luddites or plain-old-telephone (POT) strivers from a different shore. Bye Alexa.