Everyone knows best

Customer-release specialist

Sourced premise + contemporary fictional WRYCUT scene

In its March release on deceptive interfaces, Poland’s consumer watchdog UOKiK highlighted subscriptions that are easy to start and difficult to cancel. That is the factual premise. What follows is an original fictional WRYCUT scene, not an account of any company, cancellation process or customer complaint.

John decided to cancel a service he had not used for six months. He opened his account. The purchase button was immediately visible, although he wanted to buy nothing. The cancellation button was not, although it was the only thing he wanted. Clearly, the company understood its customers and allocated their attention accordingly.

Support greeted him by name. For a moment John felt remembered. Then he noticed the same personal touch in an advertisement for socks he had never wanted.

“I’d like to cancel.”
“We’re sorry you’re considering leaving. May we ask why?”
“I don’t use the service.”
“We understand. How can we help you use it more?”
“You could stop charging me.”
“That wouldn’t improve your engagement.”

John was offered three answers. None said “please turn it off”. He selected “other”. Support asked him to be more specific. He wrote that he wanted to cancel. The system found his answer too short to provide effective assistance. He added “permanently”. The system thanked him for this valuable insight.

“We have an offer for you. Two months at half price.”
“I don’t want it at half price.”
“So price is your main concern.”
“No. This conversation is my main concern.”
“Thank you. Your feedback will help us improve this conversation.”

John briefly hoped that meant the conversation would end. Instead, he was asked whether he might return. He said he did not know: he had yet to manage leaving. Support suggested keeping access so he would never have to come back. The logic was impeccable. A person who never leaves does save himself a return journey.

He was offered a pause. During the pause, he would not use the service. John explained that he had been implementing this arrangement independently for some time. The difference was that the company could now treat his lack of interest as a feature.

“Would you like to speak to a customer-retention specialist?”
“I’d like a customer-release specialist.”
“We don’t have that role.”

John left his desk, made tea and returned. Support was still polite. In his absence it had sent five messages assuring him that the decision was entirely his. Independence was beginning to feel heavy. An independent person ought to be able to end a conversation independently. So far, John had merely managed to let his tea go cold.

Eventually, a confirmation form appeared. John agreed that he understood the loss of access. He confirmed that he would miss having access. He was not sure he would, but he had come too far to stop over a minor inaccuracy. He declined one final special offer and clicked “continue”.

“Before we finish, let me check your account activity.”

John waited. His screen showed six hours of service use: all spent today in support. Then came an award. After six months away, he had joined the company’s most engaged customers.

His prize was a free consultation with a customer-retention specialist.

An outcome according to plan

FACT / CUT · background material, not NOW

FACT: On 21 July 2026, NIK reported missing outcome evaluation in Poland’s Cybersecure Local Government programme. This does not mean every purchase was useless.

CUT — fictional WRYCUT dialogue:
“Are we safer?”
“The equipment’s been delivered.”
“I asked about safety.”
“That question wasn’t in the order.”

Both sides were right

Documented history + explicitly separate fictional briefing

Mars Climate Orbiter launched on 11 December 1998. It was intended to study Mars from orbit and provide a communications relay. Contact was lost on 23 September 1999, on arrival at the planet. NASA describes a trajectory calculation error arising from a mismatch between English and metric units. This is a documented event, not a legend about an absent-minded scientist.

JPL’s preliminary release on 30 September also identified a process failure: the error was not recognised and corrected as information passed between teams. We should not reduce the story to one person forgetting a conversion. The more interesting problem is less comfortable. Teams can know a great deal and still fail to establish what a number actually means.

It is useful material for an issue about people who know best. A vast distance does not require a vast misunderstanding. Sometimes each side merely considers its own unit obvious. The briefing below is entirely our invention; neither source records such a conversation.

“Are the figures correct?”
“On our side, yes.”
“And on the other side?”
“Correct there too.”
“Excellent. Why are they different?”
“Because they’re independently correct.”

Someone suggests adding the unit. Someone else points out that this would change the form. A third person asks whether the two sides could stop being right simultaneously. That will be difficult: both have already sent confirmation.

The target here is procedural certainty, not science as a whole. Publishing the causes of a failure is precisely how lessons become possible. An investigation is more valuable than a reassuring story in which an infallible manager finds a convenient person to blame.

A proposed ending for selection:
“So the spacecraft never arrived?”
“It arrived. Our units just hadn’t agreed on the altitude.”

Audience research

Original WRYCUT fiction · self-satire

“How many readers laughed?”
“One.”
“Who?”
“The writer.”
“Put down: expert panel.”