To the Readers' Forum:
Perhaps it would promote understanding of the consumer if those providing the service were required to sample the services themselves.
Staff in public transportation, cabs or buses, should be required to schedule a trip for themselves; be ready half an hour before pick-up, purchase a ticket with exact change, stand on a street corner to wave a vehicle down, and wait up to an hour to be returned.
Staff in nursing homes should be required to stay overnight on a weekend in a facility they are not familiar with, be forced to buzz the nurse for half an hour to order to be taken to the bathroom, sit in a wheelchair for hours in a hallway or bedroom, and eat what everybody else is fed.
If staff would experience what the consumer does, perhaps it would promote change for the better. It would be the Golden Rule put into action.