A friend recently shared their frustration after an automated business verification system rejected their company’s submission for the second time.
The business is legitimate. The instructions were followed. The requested documentation was provided. The answer was still no.
What struck me wasn’t the rejection.
It was the absence of anywhere meaningful to go next.
No accountable decision-maker. No conversation. No path to understanding what happened or how to resolve it. Just another attempt.
The story felt familiar because it reflects something I’ve been noticing for years.
We were promised that technology would reduce friction, eliminate paperwork, streamline communication, and free people to focus on higher-value work. Instead, many of us spend a growing portion of our lives managing the systems that were supposedly built to serve us.
My family has spent the last several years navigating cancer, connective tissue disease, rheumatoid arthritis, degenerative disc disease, vestibular migraine, and the countless appointments, prescriptions, referrals, authorizations, imaging orders, and insurance requirements that accompany them.
Recently, resolving two prescription issues and a single imaging order required eight phone calls and roughly four hours of my time.
Not receiving care.
Not improving health.
Not solving the underlying problem.
Simply coordinating organizations that were each waiting for someone else to act.
This is where I think many organizations have lost sight of an important distinction.
The work didn’t disappear.
It moved.
Tasks once performed by receptionists, customer service representatives, coordinators, clerks, and support staff now belong to customers, patients, and families.
We create accounts.
Manage passwords.
Navigate authentication systems.
Track documentation.
Transfer information between departments.
Follow up repeatedly.
Appeal automated decisions.
Coordinate communication between organizations that often seem incapable of communicating with one another.
The labor still exists.
The ownership changed.
One of the best examples I’ve encountered recently is a pharmacist named Dustin.
When a prescription issue emerged, Dustin didn’t tell me which phone numbers to call. He called the physician’s office. He worked with the insurance company. He checked inventory at other locations. Then he called me back with an update.
He absorbed complexity instead of transferring it.
That is service.
By contrast, many modern systems operate on a different model.
We don’t have your medication.
You call the doctor.
You call the insurance company.
You figure out the authorization.
You call us back when it’s done.
That isn’t service.
That’s outsourced administrative labor.
A few days ago, I walked into a grocery store and found the self-checkout area closed. A sign directed customers to staffed checkout lanes for a more personalized experience.
To my surprise, I felt relieved.
Not because I needed help scanning groceries.
Because someone was available if I did.
Someone was accountable.
Someone could solve a problem.
For years, we’ve measured efficiency primarily through the lens of organizational cost. We celebrate reduced headcount, increased automation, and faster transaction speeds.
What we rarely measure is the burden transferred to the people we serve.
Which leaves me with a question for leaders.
If your customers, employees, patients, suppliers, and communities are now performing work that once existed inside your organization, did your efficiency program actually eliminate work?
Or did you simply stop measuring the cost?
Because the burden never disappears.
It lands somewhere.
And increasingly, it lands on the very people the system was supposed to help.
Slingshot Designs 