When I write a piece of code, I love to see it execute for the first time it goes live. Sometimes this happens in the wee hours of early morning / late night and being a night person, I prefer to stay awake. This gives me a lot of time to think about general stuff while trying to be patiently impatient for the big-moment to arrive.

[I couldn't watch "The Departed" bcoz after our discussion on Lalit's Little Italy revu, I didnt want Ipsi to think I got the movie only bcoz of our italian discussion and not bcoz of the Oscars ~ isn't life complicated :D]

I happened to read some food reviews and I felt hungry - This led me to the kitchen and I realised I was out of clean plates. A quick search revealed that I was also out of dish-washer liquid and not wanting to clean a dish at that god-forsaken-hour, my thoughts immediately went to the quick and handy maid that we so much rely upon in India.

This combo of hunger, snow (read prev. diary entry), laziness and being patiently impatient got the neurons firing and Eureka ! I found out the reason to our famous "Chalta hai" Indian attitude !

While relentlessly pondering and fretting and fuming at why does Indian customer care sucks .... the answer was right in our own backyard and it can be classified into 2 reasons.

1) In other countries, there are very few maids as the standard of living is high and most people cannot afford them. Thus, people have to do their own work at home after coming from work! This makes them realise the value of time bcoz if they are late at work or stuck in traffic, or if their schedule goes a little askew, the house work just piles on! In India, we have the maid do the work for us and this makes us not realise the value of time as ours is spent travelling and being stuck in traffic... this brought me to the other part of the answer.

2) While we are stuck in traffic, we have ample of time to see our surroundings - if in a car, it is at traffic lights or in just plain grid-lock, we see kids trying to eke a living selling the various magazines and news papers and other odds and ends. We see the poor begging for money. We see people sweating in a chock-a-block bus, travelling more inhumanly than cattle ~ If we are the human cattle in a bus or train, we go into day-dreaming mode, but our mind and our senses are sub-consciously absorbing the surroundings as we listen to the mundane woes of our fellow commuters and country-folks from all strata of society.

The point is, in India we are so much exposed to the everyday problems and daily musings that our inner being has hardened and our sensitivity towards other people has died or atleast lessend by a considerable amount. This, I believe is in the interest of our self-preservation and survival for if we act like people in developed countries do, we'll get nowhere in our country - should I say thanks to the govt.?

In India, people are in a constant state of survival as everyday tasks like commuting and completing the home-ofc-home routine itself is a big challenge for us.

This, my dear readers, is the reason for our lack of customer service towards our fellow Indians. We expect them to know and feel what we see and feel everyday and we expect them to "adjust" to our insensitivity towards their problem because we feel and know that we have seen and experienced much worse! How many times, while hearing about someone's problem, have you thought "This person is cribbing for such a small thing. What if he/she had to endure such-and-such problem?"

But while thinking that - we ought to remember that such-and-such problem was not their problem ~ their problem is what they are asking us to fix right now! And as we are in the business of customer service, it is our responsibility to fix THIS problem so the person can get on with his/her life.

But then even if we change our attitude towards life, I feel this change may last only till another road is dug up on our work route. And if the frustration increases too much, I think we should take a leaf from Mr. Bill Gates and like we restart our PC when it acts up, we should hit the "restart" button of life to re-adjust ur attitude and be more sensitive to the problem at hand and resolve it with a smile - one day at a time!

:-)

!! Spike !!