Existence

Yesterday I was sent by email a set of questions from TIAA asking me to critique a recent telephone exchange I had with one of their employees.  It was in reference to a recent decision on the part of the City University of New York to do something or other with the retirement accounts their employees hold.  I am about to be 87 and have been retired for over 20 years so I did not think it could possibly affect me, but who knows? and the CUNY administration had sent me a document fully twenty pages or more long announcing this in their customary impenetrable language so I felt I ought to pay some attention, not that I could understand a word of it.  I called TIAA and was pleasantly surprised to get into telephone contact almost immediately.  A woman with a nice telephone voice took my question put me on hold, and checked out what I was talking about, came back on to assure me the new policy, whatever it was, did not affect me.  End of exchange.  Somewhat later in the day or before the next I received an email from TIAA asking me to complete a survey on the telephone call.  These things are tedious but I wanted to support the person who had spoken with me, so I agreed.  Big Mistake.  I wish I could remember the questions now, but they were mostly so bland, so general that they did not describe nor not describe my experience.  Toward the middle of the session there came a question that threw the TIAA questioners into a tizzy which allowed for an answer saying that you were satisfied enough with the transaction, implying that you had been lukewarm about it.  Well, the truth was that I have the fortune perhaps to get on very well in these telephone exchanges, not that I have that many, and so I come away from the experience much as I do after having handed over my money for a package of gum at a CVS cash register checkout--neutral.  I marked the TIAA box for I don't know what it was, maybe "so-so," "okay" "normal," something like that.  Which prompted a set of questions wanting to identify what was "wrong" with the transaction.  God, I thought I am going to get this woman sacked!  But I couldn't go back.  Evidently even in answering innocuous performance questions you are supposed to be hyped up and smiling like the people hawking deodorant, toothpaste, or cooking oils on television.  Lay off, guys; life isn't like that, see.  It's just okay, and, hey, we lead drab existences and when you can say okay, it's an achievement!