Growing Pains at the Level of a Nation
In India, the exception to the rule is the rule. It’s historically been that way and it’s still that way in many cases. Standardization in daily life dealings is not the way things work. An exception comes from left field, you get a bit frustrated, have to adjust to it and make the situation work.
It’s not that these things don’t happen in other countries. They do. It’s just that here in India there doesn’t seem to be a method to the madness. Many times, there is no structure to anything. And so things feel like they come from nowhere. The truth is not everything is a coincidence and you aren’t losing your mind. It’s the unstructured way of doing business that is throwing your head in a spin.
Why, or how, do things happen in bunches? An unwritten rule is that people don’t work in isolated environments and there is constant overlap in dealings. Many things are passed on. Many things and many people are connected, whether you want it or not.
For example, if you apply for one credit card, somehow you will start getting calls from 3-4 other companies within the week (the consumer data services can’t be that efficient). You will finally talk to them and be surprised at how they know so much about you. You’ll call the representative at the first company who solicited your application and completed your paperwork and find out that he’s not actually employed by the credit card company you were applying to, he’s just an agent. He services many credit card companies. Of course, he never disclosed that to you.
The agent took it upon himself to submit your information to another vendor, but not officially. He passed on your information and the second credit card company is now calling you with an offer and asking you questions they already have the answers to, as their subtle acknowledgements will confirm. The agent thought you wanted a credit card, so why are you complaining?! He doesn’t seem to think that you might not have wanted two and even if you did, that doesn’t give him the permission to pass on your information. Oh, but how does that matter, he was trying to help you get what you wanted.
As another example, if you apply to one job (via HR) at an educational institution, you’ll all of a sudden get a call from another company where you hadn’t submitted a resume, a company you would not have applied to (i.e. a company in an industry you want to leave). The educational institution will have passed on your resume without your consent (and keep you hanging for an interview by telling you they’re not scheduled yet!). If you ask Company B how they got your name and information, they’ll inform you you had just submitted your resume last week Friday, coincidentally a few days after you had submitted your resume to the original organization. You have your answer yet you can’t do anything about it. Either the two people at the two organizations were friends and they routinely pass resumes along or, shudder the thought, there’s a structured (the irony of it!) underground system at work when it comes to educational institutions passing on resumes to companies/recruiters as if you were one of their students looking for a job, not applying for a staff position. I call it underground because it was done without your consent.
This is not just about disclosure or that your information gets dumped in a database that a company can buy. It’s also not about lack of transparency. It’s not about discerning you from similar but unrelated groups of people or customers. It’s much more than that. It’s not even just about privacy, a concept that isn’t mainstream, it seems like it’s only starting to make its way in. It’s even more than that. It’s about professional conduct and respecting an individual’s right to choose (which jobs they apply for or which/how many credit cards they want, for example). It’s about having and following rules so when things happen they don’t seem so out of whack. It’s about structure!
The further interesting thing is that the opposite of this is also true. Things have improved dramatically where rules are being enforced. The problem is also that we may have now hit the other extreme in many cases as well. We may not have the flexibility to accomodate situations in an attempt to enforce rules. So you either have no structure or you have too much. Either you have no rules and business happens chaotically or you have extreme rigidity where customer focus and service don’t matter.
Yes, my judgement is a result of the fact that I lived in the US for many years. It’s also the result of a country that is finding itself, is growing, is stretching. It’s just that sometimes the way it goes about doing all this can be a bit harrowing. These are growing pains, at the level of a nation!
How Close Do You Need to Stand in a Queue?
My “correction” in the last post was genuine. Seriously. It was. 
I say that because you may not believe me after you read this post. Actually, this incident isn’t all that bad. It’s just another example of something that happens quite frequently in India. Maybe I should start a list of these things!
I went to the bank today. As I stood in the queue (i.e., a line) for the teller, the guy behind me got right up to me. There were only three people, I was the second one, it’s not like there was a huge rush to get to the teller. But there he was.
I noticed him because he was counting his cash deposit while holding a piece of paper. The paper kept hitting my elbow. The third time it happened (I wasn’t annoyed, I was in a good mood) I was thinking of his benefit when I asked him to back up a bit. If he did, the paper wouldn’t hit me and possibly cause him to accidentally drop his cash.
His reply: “Don’t worry, you’re in front of me”. Now, I hadn’t thought about that at all. I knew I was in front of him, the place was empty, the situation didn’t require me to think that he could possibly take cuts, there was just no need for that. I said, “No, that’s not it. I was…”. And before I could finish, he said in Hindi, “Yah, right that’s not what it is, don’t worry you’re in front of me”. I slightly chuckled, realized who I was dealing with, and so tried to change the topic by looking elsewhere. I can do that very effectively too, the changing of a subject in this type of situation. 
This reaction from the guy shouldn’t have surprised me. I know that is how it is here. It’s there in my head, it’s not there in my daily thinking. The reality is that when you stand in line almost anywhere in India, the person behind you will stand so close to you that he will hit your back with his chest quite frequently, the frequency only depending on how busy the place was. If it was busy, he’d love tap you at least 2-4 times a minute because the person behind him was doing the same to him. This guy was programmed to stand that close to me. He wasn’t surveying the fact that there was no one else behind him, that the bank was mostly empty.
In my mind, I was at a bank. An AC bank (I have to distinguish that because I’ve been to non-AC banks also). A well-renowned bank. I mean, it was a place you wouldn’t expect nonsense, you’d expect people to be professional and respectful. But, here I was, going back to the “profile” issue I ran into when setting up the dinner circles, although it’s an apples to oranges comparison between the two. This guy was from the working class population, not a servant, but probably making not much more than one.
His automatic response indicating his thinking was a result of two things: a) the situational reality of standing in line in India and having to guard your spot, and b) the kinds of places and things he’s around. If he was of a different class (I hate using that word but I can’t find a better way to describe him right now), he may have responded differently. He may not have been even standing so close to me in the first place.
But this is the India of today (and yesterday). It’s a real mixture of people. In your day-to-day routine, you run into and deal with everyone, from the rich to the poor, from the highly educated to those who don’t know how to read or write. This translates into being exposed to professional attitude and behavior one minute to thugging another. That’s just how it is.
So, how close do you really need to stand to the guy in front of you to protect your position in the queue? Very close! That’s also just how it is.
(A question I have – I wonder how different the attitude would be if I was in Mumbai as opposed to Delhi? Delhi is known to be aggressive and unsophisticated. Mumbai may not be the land of “please” and “thank you” either but I wonder if it’s better. The way I see it, life is a matter of degrees, not extremes. Things can be great, okay/tolerable, or hellish/overbearing with the change of a few degrees. Okay, so maybe this isn’t the best example to use when trying to figure out how aggressive and unsophisticated a city is. These kinds of things are an annoyance but they aren’t that big a deal either and these would not be the things I would focus on when determining which city I lived in, they would be a consideration only if the difference in degrees was a lot and one was better suited to me than the other. Okay, so this is a really bad example, but whatever, I wanted to make that connection anyway.)
Misplaced Pride and a Correction
This is a wrap-up, a bigger picture comment, that is a result of my last post.
The kind of thing the Honda service rep was being proud of, it’s a bit misplaced. And it’s weird only because you get this kind of pride quite often when dealing with vendors in India. Something that is positive for them, the vendor, not for me, the customer, is something the employees of that company display proudly. Same thing happens frequently with Airtel. Wait! Hold on! Stop and think about that for a second, will ya!
Okay, now that I’ve rapped on India again, let me say two things. First, in my defense, it’s hard not to. I’ve only been here a year and my mind naturally compares. Who isn’t comparing India and China to the West? The media is, the world is. Those who think about shifting back to India do! People in India have forever compared the West to it! It’s hard to avoid.
Second, and more importantly, these things are really not that big a deal. I notice them only because the other world which I inhabited for so many years, it’s way of conducting business and way of life, was a stark difference. If I had come from say, Mexico, where things work similarly to India, it probably wouldn’t even register. My move would be really be on the same continuum (haha, I like that phraseology!). Sometimes I get pissed off if it’s an issue that really matters. These kinds of things are minor annoyances that I forget about very soon.
To wrap-up this wrap-up big picture post (haha), I must say that things have improved in Hindustan. Telephone lines can be hooked up within days instead of months. Cable and internet can be set up (as long as you have the right documentation and photos, otherwise you might as well forget it). Things are better! It’s going in the right direction. Yet, there’s a mentality behind some things that still needs work. I guess I need work too. I shouldn’t be comparing. What can I do, I’m a returning NRI, the guy that doesn’t fit in either country completely. Another year or two, I’ll be in the opposite boat. It really does take that much time to take up the local viewpoint.
Honda Service Center in Delhi
It had been a while since I had my car tuned up. We made quite a few trips up north, to Chandigarh and Amritsar during my sister’s wedding. I also went to Rajasthan and Mussoorie in my car. Some of those roads were really bad and dust-filled, which eventually gets into the engine parts. Then there’s the local driving out to South Delhi and Gurgaon. All in all, that’s quite a few miles on my Honda. It was due for maintenance. Usually, I’m fairly good about getting my car serviced on time.
The possibility, which seems remote now, of taking the Srinagar-Ladakh-Leh trip got me to the Honda service center. I had called to schedule an appointment for today. Even if I wasn’t going, I thought I might as well get it done now, I’ve finally got the time. The lady didn’t ask, and I didn’t think to tell/ask either, which service I would be getting done. I found out when I went in today that it was a major service that required them to keep my car until tomorrow evening, a full two days. That meant I had to cancel my tentative appointment in Gurgaon. It also meant I didn’t know how to get back home.
I asked the service rep if someone could drop me off. After talking to a manager and a little haggling, it was worked out that a driver would drop me off and bring the car back. That was good customer service I thought. In fact, this is the second time I’ve taken my car to this dealership. I’ve found them to be pretty good. Here’s when an interesting thing happened.
In case I needed someone to pick/drop me off again at the time of the next maintenance, I asked the rep if they provided such a service. I know the Hyundai guys a couple of blocks away do. It’s very convenient. The service rep responded, proudly, that they do provide that kind of service except there is a 1-2 month waiting list for it!
Two things hit me at this point. First, I understood why he was proud – the long wait implied that they were very busy. That’s a good thing. Second, why in the world would you think a “service” such as this with a waiting list of 1-2 months was a positive thing?! Is that really a service? Why would you be proud of it?
I’m getting my car tuned up. It’s one of those things that needs to be done relatively soon – either because something needs to be fixed or because you’ve hit the mileage where maintenance is required. A 1-2 month wait is not going to do.
leave a comment