Of words sans actions

Early morning today, i went to the Popular Bajaj service centre to collect my bike. While waiting for it to be brought out from the parking lot, i noticed the day's activities gearing up. Bikes were trickling in for service and the staff was booking them one after the other. I'd gone through the process y'day and it was slightly painful then due to the rush. Today morning was very peaceful in comparison. Still, i found this balding,lean guy cribbing away to glory. He'd found a faithful listener in a similarly grieving soul and was voicing his displeasure pretty loudly. He wanted everyone to hear it. There were others around too, waiting for their bikes to be booked . But they were just hanging around with sad faces, mentally gritting their teeth probably.

So this angry young man goes somewhat like this,

"People are waiting since 7 o'clock. If they can't book promptly, why do they assign drop-in times to customers? Let people come whenever they want. Either way they are making us wait so long. What are they doing? Are they waiting for a Tirupati Darshan to book these bikes for service. Why don't they understand that people might have pressing needs to attend to?..hrrmmph!!"

Let me explain. A customer calls up the service centre and reserves a date and time for service. He can then drop in his bike at the said time and collect it later at a prescribed time. Now it so happens many times, that people do not bring in their bikes on time. this creates undue rush later on. I faced that y'day. It took me about half an hour to get my bike booked. But if i hadn't done what i did, it would have taken an hour easily. I simply walked up to the reception and asked to speak to the head of the service department. They guided me to him and he immediately struck me as an honest man. I softly told him that it would be nice if he could press a few more of his staff into booking the bikes considering the situation. He took it very sportingly and himself moved around speeding things up. And it did speed up. I didn't get an opportunity to thank him later, but that would have been the icing on the cake.

There are a few points noteworthy here. Firstly, our angry young man could have reacted on similar lines today morning rather than shout his anger and exacerbate the general discontentment around. His words wouldn't speed up the process as mush as they would irritate the staff and thus further adversely affect the service.

There are days when I'm in the shoes of the angry young man. Its just that y'day i happened to be more reasonable. I think we all should try to do that.

The other noteworthy point is about complimenting good work. We are all very quick to point out mistakes and mouth criticism. But rarely do we appreciate good work or a nice thought. An unexpectedly received 'thank you' or 'well done' can make the day for a person and it comes at no cost.

Thats all i had to say, thanks for being with me till here :)