Una verdad simulada

Since labour is cheap in India, the losses that arise due to various inefficiencies are intangible. You can hire a carpenter and get some work done for a hundred rupees instead of spending ten times that amount to buy a good toolkit. Since the carpenter comes so cheap, the opportunity cost and the time lost in hiring, haggling and waiting for carpenter (who almost never arrives on time) gets neglected. Likewise, the cost to the country’s economy due to poor infrastructure is well known. Simply put, the two hours one spends caught in a traffic jam would be well spent doing something productive.

What prompted me to write this post was the waste of resources, mostly human resources, that I observed with the furniture and equipment installation service that I got when I moved into my quarters about a fortnight ago.

First off, everyone in customer service or installation comes to your home with a sidekick. “Customer experience executives” that help you with your “investments” when you have a certain sum of money in a checking/savings account in India visit your home with a sidekick. The only job of sidekick is to accompany the main fellow. Why do you need the sidekick if he/she is just sitting there doing nothing.

One enterprising executive had the sidekick fill all the forms; I spelled my name to the executive, who in turn spelled it so that the sidekick could jot it down on the form. I mean, come on!

The guy who came to install the washing machine arrived with no tools. He just plugged in the washing machine, realized that the water outlet was too large for the hose and left saying that he will come the next day with the tools. Why did you think I asked for an installation guy who would do some plumbing? I explained exactly what needed to be done, still the guy arrived with no tools. The next day, he purchases some stuff such as a T-junction, a tap and a few more things. But he forgets the wrech. You must be f&%#ing kidding me to come for a plumbing job without your wrench.

The same guy came for installing the refrigerator. Why? If all I have to do is to connect the voltage stabilizer and plug in that equipment, can I not do it myself? Do I have “idiot” written on my face? This guy came from Thiruvanmyur, a 30-minute ride on bike, and spent 30 minutes installing the refrigerator. What a waste of an hour!

Same story for the AC. Voltas technicians arrived at my doorstep in spite of me telling the sales guy 4 times that I will need a carpenter to make an opening in the window to fit the AC. All that the Voltas guys did was to advice me that I need to request IIT engineering unit to do this because they don’t have the tools to cut the wood and the grill (old construction is strong).

The lack of any concept of time hurts us in ways beyond what we imagine. A carpenter promises to come at 1 pm. After waiting for an hour, I call him to find that he hasn’t yet left his shop. He promises to leave in five minutes and arrives an hour and a half later (just a 15-minute walk from his store). Getting a 30-minute job done required me to spend a whopping 3 hours of my time.

In another case, the installation guys appear at my doorstep 5 minutes before my lecture. I have specifically instructed them not to come before 4:30 pm since I have a class to teach from 3 to 4 pm. Finding the door locked, this dude calls me on my cell. I express my inability to be there for the next hour and a half, and ask him to come later. I call him after my lecture to find that he has spent the entire hour and quarter doing nothing outside my house. This was totally unbelievable.

I guess “wait till I arrive” might be a routine thing; perhaps that explains the need for the side-kick.

Tags: General, Personal //