Are You Really Successful?

Check Out Your Score of Success After Reading This Article

Success: Wide Spectrum Paradigm

Success paradigms have a very wide spectrum. Seen as rich, turning into celebrity, becoming popular, getting known, seen as influential or recognition of your high status are pretty common success criteria for a very large number of people. In a way, this means that you tend to feel successful when other people acknowledge that you are successful. It may be out of your approval addiction. Even if you are not approval addict, you, on your own (irrespective of what others think), may also feel successful if you achieve certain degrees of any one or more of these things. However, even in here, if large majority of others think that achieving the degrees of success you have achieved in the parameters listed above are not good enough for you to be recognized as successful, your own assessment of yourself as being successful may get diminished in your own mind. Again, approval addiction, may be of lower order.

Also, if you have all of these (rich, celebrity, popular, known, influential, status) as per your assessment and others also recognize that you have achieved all of these but your own child thinks that you have neglected him/her all through his/her life and he/she hates you for that; are you really successful?

You have all of these (rich, celebrity, popular, known, influential, status) as per your and others’ assessment but you have treated your spouse in a such a derogatory manner that she/he is on the brink of asking for divorce or running away with another person; are you really successful?

You have all of these (rich, celebrity, popular, known, influential, status) but when your father or mother needs you most in his/her sickness or any other trying situation and you are away on your business all the time and grossly neglect him/her; are you really successful?

You have all of these (rich, celebrity, popular, known, influential, status), but fight tooth and nail with your brother(s) and/or sister(s) to meet some selfish ends and severe all the relationships, are you really successful?

You have all of these (rich, celebrity, popular, known, influential, status), but you did not look after your children's education, development and growth and because of this negligence, they ended up without any decent education, grew with skewed values, got into drugs and other bad habits, have become irresponsible and undisciplined, are you really successful?

You have all of these (rich, celebrity, popular, known, influential, status), but you wife has not grown much after her marriage with you since you have not supported her enough as a husband, are you really successful?

You have all of these (rich, celebrity, popular, known, influential, status), but you have not acquired and assimilated the proper education to develop yourself into a cultured and refined human being and constantly brag about yourself, belittle others and are in a habit of ill-treating and insulting the people, are you really successful?

You have all of these (rich, celebrity, popular, known, influential, status), but you have fallen into becoming a drunkard, a junkie, a womanizer, smuggler, bootlegger etc (even though the charges might not have been legally or socially acknowledged or confirmed), are you really successful?

You have all of these (rich, celebrity, popular, known, influential, status), but you have got into habit of saving your face by impressing upon people that you are successful or better than them or many others and in the process you have to act, pretend, fake or camouflage (meaning that you are not a genuine person), are you really successful?

You have all of these (rich, celebrity, popular, known, influential, status) but a large section of people also throw rotten eggs or shoes at you or in extreme case, plan to kill you or even kill you because you have antagonized them harshly, unreasonably and unethically; are you really successful?

You have all these (rich, celebrity, popular, known, influential, status) but you have been corrupt and greedy and have amassed money illegitimately (though may or may not have been caught doing so by law or by people); are you really successful?

You have all these (rich, celebrity, popular, known, influential, status) but have misguided the people dependent on you, manipulated and exploited them to achieve your personal interests, took wrong decisions affecting the people (and have not been caught by law or by people), are you really successful?

You have all these (rich, celebrity, popular, known, influential, status) but you have been responsible for hurting people physically or mentally or financially because of which those people suffered grossly in their life (and you have not been caught by law or people and you still live a high brow life shamelessly), are you really successful?

You have all these (rich, celebrity, popular, known, influential, status) but your thinking, advices, decisions and actions have led to careless accidents, skirmishes, battles and wars killing civilian and military people, are you really successful?

You have all these (rich, celebrity, popular, known, influential, status) but your thinking, advices, decisions and actions have led to provide, illegally or legally, such goods and services whose production, distribution, disposal and consumption pollute the environment and adversely affect the people health wise and economically, are you really successful?

You have all these (rich, celebrity, popular, known, influential, status) but your thinking, advices, decisions and actions have led the prices of basic human requirements like essential food stuff, water, education and health care soar sky high to the extent that the citizens of the country/world cannot afford them, are you really successful?

You have all these (rich, celebrity, popular, known, influential, status) but you have, in fact, bought all of these by manipulating/lobbying unscrupulously the power, the people and the media and it has not come to you by adopting natural, ethical and legal course, are you really successful?

You have all these (rich, celebrity, popular, known, influential, status) but you are not able to look after your health due to variety of reasons though within your control and therefore, you are perennially physically, intellectually, mentally, emotionally or spiritually sick causing troubles to yourself and people around you, are you really successful?

Read the "inside" stories of the corporate sector at: (Management Anecdotes) http://management-anecdotes.blogspot.com/

Doctor or Mercenary

An Appalling True Story

This true appalling incident saddened me lots. A friend of mine narrated this to me.

His father recently died from heart ailment. My friend had admitted his father to the intensive care unit of a hospital run by the most reputed heart specialist/surgeon of a big city of a big country of the earth. His father had the second heart attack and was in an extremely critical state. The heart specialist/surgeon confirmed that his father was very critical and chances of survival were less and he insisted on an immediate operation and emphasized the need to install a pace maker if he wanted his father to be alive and recover.

Accordingly, a pace maker was installed in the body. Yet, the things did not work and he died. When the dead body was being taken away from the hospital, my friend requested the attending doctor (different from the heart specialist/surgeon) to take out the pace maker from the body and hand it over to him, after all it was hardly used.

The attending doctor checked up and mentioned that there was no pace maker in the dead body. My friend was shocked; he couldn't believe. He told the attending doctor about the operation performed the day before and also told as to how the heart specialist/surgeon had emphasized on installing the pace maker. The attending doctor once again confirmed that there was no pace maker in the body.

Immediately, my friend spoke with the heart specialist/surgeon about it and the heart specialist/surgeon offered him enormous amount of money to keep his mouth shut.

Read the “inside” stories of the corporate sector at: (Management Anecdotes) http://management-anecdotes.blogspot.com/

Proactive Approach to Recession

Need for Permanent Solution

Many recessionary cycles have come and gone creating social and economic havoc and they keep coming back again and again to create the insurmountable problems. Nobody seems to have found a permanent solution for this. It is high time that the people who are responsible to prevent them from the root level to recur get together and put their heads together to find permanent solutions. Is it really that difficult? The answer is plain "no". But it requires the missionary zeal to tackle this Himalayan task. There is a need to adopt a proactive approach.
It's no good then just to think and find solutions on papers but implementation and actions will only bring about the desired positive results.

Read the “inside” stories of the corporate sector at: (Management Anecdotes) http://management-anecdotes.blogspot.com/

Husband-Wife Relationship: Don't Expect Your Partner to be Your Carbon Copy

Celebrate Uniqueness but Do Change for Better

It is a myth that the marital discords, at times, also occur due to the differences in the personalities, attitudes likings/disliking, habits and behaviors of husband and wife. That may be the triggers but the real root cause of the dissonance or conflicts is that one of them wants the other to change into the carbon copy of the self. This extraordinary expectation can be very heavy on the other person particularly when this demand or expectation is expressed in a forceful or condescending manner. One must understand that it is very difficult to change one’s personality, attitudes likings/disliking, habits and behaviors not only in a short period but also over long period. If the wife likes watching romantic movies or reading romantic novels and husband likes to watch action movies and action novels, it is not necessary for them to expect the other to do the same. As understanding husband and wife, they may start taking interest in each other’s likings over a period of time- that’s the best thing to happen and ideally should happen. Or it may happen that one is a very tidy person and other compromises tidiness for whatsoever reasons, one must learn to let go each other. The tidy person should compromise with other person’s untidiness and untidy person should try to become tidier gradually and also, in the process, both should help each other in making the home a tidier place. Yet, the two are unique individuals and forcing each other to become “ditto” is not the answer. The best thing will be to enjoy and celebrate the uniqueness of each other while some good changes may be taking place in both- and they must, if they love each other or want to love each other.

Read the “inside” stories of the corporate sector at: (Management Anecdotes) http://management-anecdotes.blogspot.com/

Who Says Marriages Are Made in Heaven?

No, They Have to Be Worked Out on Earth

Taking marriage for granted is the sure shot way to failure of marriage- it may result in withdrawals, tenseness, irritation, bickering, sadness, unhappiness, discords, fights and may be, divorce.

Everyone gets adversely and negatively affected- husband, wife and children.

Never ever assume that since it was love at first sight or second sight or it was a well analyzed or well planned search for the life partner through a series of dating procedures or it was a perfect match making by way of arranged marriage procedure also involving parents or other well wishers and also the horoscope matching pundits, it will automatically end up in a perfect marriage. Do not think that successful marriage will automatically happen.

No, it does not happen; it has to be worked out. It requires the necessary values, knowledge (rational, emotional and spiritual), thinking patterns (paradigms) and a strong will to develop and implement the related skills and competencies and finally using those skills and competencies through out the married life. Also refer: (Life Management: Effectiveness Management: HSoftware) http://humansoftware.blogspot.com/ http://knol.google.com/k/shyam-bhatawdekar/management-in-life-profession-family/6txz9nck6g3/3#

Developing the marriage related skills and competencies and implementing them need to be addressed with lots of seriousness. You will have to list down what skills and competencies you should develop and implement to make your marriage a success. Get knowledge on them, acquire them, practice them and implement them. Also refer: (Competencies- Life Management) http://shyam-bhatawdekar.blogspot.com/ or http://knol.google.com/k/shyam-bhatawdekar/competency-matrix/6txz9nck6g3/4#

To help you further on how to make your marriage a real success be guided by the important tips that are given at (Counseling: Psychological) http://counselingfamily.blogspot.com/ and (Parental Responsibilities) http://parental-responsibilities.blogspot.com/

Good luck.

Read the “inside” stories of the corporate sector at: (Management Anecdotes) http://management-anecdotes.blogspot.com/

Giving Numbers to Human Beings Is Dehumanizing

With Powerful Computers, Word Processing Is Possible; Giving Numbers of Any Sort to Human Beings Is Not Necessary- It Is Dehumanizing

Many countries have this system of assigning a unique identification number (called severally, different name in different country) to each and every person who lives in that country. Many other countries are trying to ape the others.

In fact, with powerful computers available all around us, giving numbers is not at all necessary. Powerful computers with large capacities can perform word processing very effectively, accurately and fast. So, where is question of giving numbers? In fact, no numbers should be given to people by any one in future, say by banks, credit card companies, schools or anyone else etc and existing numbers should become defunct. These days we are literally sick of all these numbers- there are hundreds of them with everyone and we just don't know how to manage them. Every Tom, Dick and Harry slips a number to us.

You will ask how to give the unique identity to a person then? It is simple. The full name of the person, correctly spelt read along with the person's mother's maiden name, date of birth, place of birth etc will give unique identity to each person. For internal processing, computers can generate their internal numbers if necessary.

Giving numbers is dehumanizing. You don't remain you but a number. Nonsense.

Giving unique numbers is not important and not necessary. What is necessary is a foolproof system of capturing the names of all the persons on computer. And further updating system should also be intact and foolproof.

Read the “inside” stories of the corporate sector at: (Management Anecdotes) http://management-anecdotes.blogspot.com/

Who Bells the Cat in Recessionary Times?

Who to Initiate and What to Initiate?

Perhaps, everyone. But someone has to initiate. Governments and the corporate sector are the ones who should take the lead to tackle the issues related to recession. Both should try and generate employment as the first step. Both, in fact, have peoples' money. It's people in general, the public who fund the governments and corporate sector by way of various taxes and investments. Public has the real claim on that money. This is the occasion when saving/providing/generating employment should be the first and foremost priority of the governments and the corporate sector. It is best done by starting new projects which will need purchasing goods and services from various organizations and people. The economy gets put into the first gear now. It will need lots of torque though- lots of efforts, lots of will power, lots of missionary zeal, lots of spirituality (nothing to do with religions or gods). And that can alone start the engine of progress once more.

These new projects will provide large degrees of employment to people as direct, contracted and temporary employees in them. Also, these projects will need lots of goods and services from the goods manufacturers and service providers. They, in turn, will once more get into action and will be capable of retaining their existing employees and perhaps, may need to employ more people to cope up with new orders. They may need additional financial support which will give work to banks and financial institutions. This whole cranking of the economic system will give more purchasing power to the public in general and to various organizations in corporate, governments and other sectors. Once more the places will start humming with hopeful activities.

In all this, the governments who are the elected/appointed servants of the public in general and who have to work for the people in general, will have to take the lead role in pumping the new life, by way of not only initiating the new projects but also by supporting the deserving banks/financial institutions and the industries. However, governments will also have to learn to exercise stricter non-corrupt governance over the organizations to whom they will advance the revival money. Also, governments will have to dramatically curtail their own non-value adding, nonessential expenditure. This whole process may give opportunities to some anti-social elements in every organization, including the governments to squander the public money now being used for new projects and as revival packages to banks/financial institutions and the industries. Governments, auditors, justice departments, media and the public will have to keep a great watch on these kinds of corrupt people and will have to deal with them with severe penalties if these people do indulge in such corrupt practices. They will have to ensure that the money being pumped in for revival of economy is utilized effectively and efficiently.

Read the “inside” stories of the corporate sector at: (Management Anecdotes) http://management-anecdotes.blogspot.com/

Capitalist Model is Great But It's an Illusion

Capitalism or Socialism or an Intelligent Blend?

Among all the known models, the capitalist model seems better, more effective and more beneficial for most people in every way. But there is a catch to it. It works well when things are done in a "natural' way, when people behave in a "balanced" manner, follow the life's "fundamentals" and operate on a "win-win" approach. The moment these things are screwed up by the people with large ulterior motives and exploitative behavior, the model gets screwed up in reality. It looks like an illusion. So, in reality, we cannot think of an Utopian society of only value based people. There are always those monsters and criminals and greedy people who do not value "values" much and remain utterly selfish. These people gang up and screw up the advantages of capitalist model and free economy. The result: recession and yet worse, economic depression.

What's the solution then? It has to come in the form of some socialist controls which work as deterrents on the value-less unethical actions of the people who try to indulge in them. These controls can be introduced and exercised in the form of laws passed by the democratic systems or the bodies, institutions or organizations of the people from the entire human society. In the capitalist model, a spirit of taking care of the general public should be integrated. The whole affair has to be a win-win outcome. The phenomenon of "people who have money keep on making money at the expense of others" should be constantly watched and people in general should be facilitated to get their proportionate share.

A judicious mix of capitalist model with socialist spirit emerges out to be the winner.

Read the “inside” stories of the corporate sector at: (Management Anecdotes) http://management-anecdotes.blogspot.com/

Drinking Is Nothing Great

• Taking alcoholic beverage or hard drinks or liquor is not a necessity.
• Drinking is not compulsory. No one can force you to drink.
• It is not a social etiquette that you must drink in private or business parties. If you do not drink, it does not mean that you are socially unfit. A non-drinker is absolutely OK in any party- perhaps, lots better than those who drink.
• In parties when offered a drink and you do not wish to take the drinks, simply say,"No, thanks". You do not have to give reasons or be apologetic about it.
• Do not fall prey to peer pressures and take to drinks.
• It is definitely not an "in" thing to drink. So, do not drink just to keep up with Joneses.
• Do not be sure that you have control over the drinks and so, it is OK to be a social drinker. Do not be under impression that your social drinking will not turn you into a habitual drinker and finally, into an alcohol addict (drunkard).
• Addiction to alcohol starts with social drinking.
• Large number of people who turned into alcohol addicts have ruined their and their families horribly.
• Habitual drinking may destroy relationships.
• Habitual drinking will drain one out financially.
• Taking alcohol beyond a limit and regularly will endanger any one's health. It can badly damage the liver.
• One makes a mockery of himself in parties and gatherings after taking drinks which he can not hold.
• Once drunk, a person may blurt out what he should not, It may harm him and the person or organization about whom he did the loose talks under the influence of hard drinks.
• No one should ever drink up to a point where he loses his sanity. Alcoholic drinks are notorious to rob one off one's sanity and civil behavior.
• As soon as a person who does take drinks occasionally starts the craving for drinks, it is the signal that he should stop it for ever then onwards. Else, the habit may go beyond control.
• The worst signal is when a person gets a craving and starts taking drinks even when alone with himself and without any society to accompany him in drinking.
• It is a wrong notion and that too an absurd one that one has to drink if in armed forces or in business circles, for one to be successful. A large number of successful people in armed forces and business have been teetotalers.
• Drowning one's sorrows is not possible by drowning oneself in drinks. It only turns one into a drunkard ultimately.
• Contrary to the general thinking and experience that alcoholic beverages are mood lifters, they are in fact depressants.
• In all, there are more disadvantages in taking to drinking than advantages (advantages are hardly any, really).
• So, it is not so great to drink.

Read the “inside” stories of the corporate sector at: (Management Anecdotes) http://management-anecdotes.blogspot.com/

Right the First Time?

Right the First Time? No! Never!!

Japanese, we hear and read, have become famous for doing every thing right the first time. What with their TQM, zero defect programs, kaizen and gemba kaizen etc.

However, in many other countries, it is opposite; right the first time? No. Never. It is not even right the second time or the third time.

A friend of mine who is a business manager in one of the reputed organizations in a big city was narrating me an experience. He wanted to organize a training program for the managerial staff in his company on "productivity". For this, he was in search of a good video film on "productivity" with around 20 to 30 minutes of running time. He came to know that an organization devoting itself fully to the cause of productivity training was having such videos. He contacted the organization personally. He was put to a clerk who was supposed to show him the list of videos the organization had and also to arrange a preview of videos which my friend would select.

My friend had to sit in front of the clerk for nearly half an hour before the file containing the list of videos was traced. After the list was traced, it was found to be an old version. The clerk said, "I think that we have received some twenty more videos since then". Let me check my other records. Other records were equally difficult to locate. So, he stretched his memory and and updated that list- God alone knows how much and how accurately updated that list was!

My friend scanned through the list and selected two videos titled "Productivity" and "Productivity is Every One's Business". In the list against the titles of the videos was written the language in which narration was for the video. On checking with the clerk, he ensured that the narration for the two selected videos was in English, which is what my friend required.

Then, my friend met the officer in that organization who asked my friend to come again the next day for the preview. He instructed the clerk to ensure that at 4 PM sharp the next day everything would be in readiness for showing the videos. The clerk nodded in confirmation.

As per the program, the next day, my friend reached the productivity organization at 4 PM and met the officer. The officer asked my friend to sit down and asked, "Yes gentleman, what can I do for you? From which company you are? etc." My friend some how checked his annoyance and keeping his cool said, "I met you yesterday and you asked me to come today at 4 PM for preview of those videos, you remember?"

The officer looked amused. "Yes, yes, now I remember. I never thought that you would really be so serious about them and also be so punctual". He called the clerk and ordered him to do the needful and asked my friend to follow the clerk.

The clerk gave a big yawn first and then called his computer cum LCD operator, "Listen, show these videos to the gentleman". The operator quipped, "But how's that possible? We have already given the projection screen to ABC Company this morning only". The clerk went on, "Doesn't matter, project on the wall; after all this gentleman wants to have just a peek at them. Even if the projection on the wall is not very decent, don't worry".

Well, that's that. The operator took him to a small dingy room which was supposed to be the computer laboratory cum the projection room for LCD projector. In an almirah, the DVDs and VCDs containing the videos were kept one on other quite haphazardly. The operator took nearly twenty minutes to pull out the jackets of the DVDs on which were written the titles of the videos that my friend wanted to see. The operator connected the LCD to the computer but LCD's lamp would not light up. He started fiddling with the wires, plugs and adapters and in the process, got a mild electric shock. He smiled at my friend, "That's part of the job. This is not the first time". Finally, the LCD and computer, both started. My friend adjusted himself on to a broken stool trying himself to keep away from the open electrical wiring all around. And what did he see on the wall, a video titled, "Do it Right the First Time".

"My God, this is not the video I wanted to see", my friend said. The operator was not much disturbed though. He said, "Doesn't matter. The video you want to see must be in the jacket meant for the video "Do it Right the First Time". So, he took out the DVD from the jacket labelled "Do it Right the First time" and loaded into the computer.

This time the title that came on the screen-wall was, "Right Methods, Right Answers".

And that was the beginning of an unending research project. The operator was taking out DVDs/VCDs one by one from each jacket (right method!) and started showing their titles to my friend through projection on the wall-screen. Not a single video was kept in it's proper jacket. "Effective Executive" video was kept in "Negative Attitudes" and "Negative Attitudes" video was kept in the jacket meant for "Modern Scientific Management" and so on.

It took the operator exactly one hour before he stumbled on "Productivity". My friend, at last, took a deep breath and the operator beamed as if he had made the greatest achievement in the world.

"Yes, the title came all right- "Productivity". Only the title was in English- narration in the film that followed was in some language other than English.

Just above this dingy small computer laboratory cum LCD projector room, in the lecture hall of this productivity organization, a training program was being conducted by the same organization. The name of the program was "How to Solve the Problems Systematically?"

Read the “inside” stories of the corporate sector at: (Management Anecdotes) http://management-anecdotes.blogspot.com/

Solution to Recession is Not Throwing People from Their Jobs

Lay-off is Not Combating the Recession

Rather, it is cowardice.

Try to reason out as to who are the culprits of the world wide slow down/recession? The answer is: the decisions and actions of the people at the helm of the affairs of all kinds of organizations, companies, institutions and governments. The answer is: the greed, profiteering, irresponsible behavior towards the customers, abnormally (forced) high prices of lands/construction/buildings/houses/education/health care/all kinds of products, artificially jacked up stock prices, corruption/scams/frauds etc. It is the top management everywhere of every organization (including governments), that is the real culprit.

As an extreme statement, any Tom, Dick and Harry can run the organizations in good times. It is during bad times, they need to really run the organizations. It is then that their mettle can be tested.

Running the organization in such bad times does not mean chucking out people of the organization as the first and the easiest of all the solutions. And yet, how many organizations throw out their top management guys? Perhaps none.

The business sense will tell any fool that we need people to buy things. If you throw out a large numbers of people from their jobs, the purchasing power dips further which is one major cause of recession or slow down. Apart from that, you are putting millions of people and their families under the traumatic experiences without jobs. Families after families get uprooted when you throw them out of jobs during recession or slow down and many people have committed suicide due to the trauma of job loss and loss of earnings for the family.

Better solution will be to reduce the salaries of every one in the organizations and not lay off any one.

More salary cuts should be for the top guys of various organizations (including the ones in the governments) since their salaries are abnormally high in general and they are the ones who made horrendous mistakes and drove everyone to this disaster called recession. There have been numerous instances when despite recession and despite employees being laid off, the company top bosses distributed huge bonuses to themselves. And then, these same top bosses go to the governments (in other words, to the same public whom they are chucking out from their jobs) with the begging bowls for the bail-out money. More steep salary cuts of the top brass of the companies and moderate/reasonable salary cuts of other employees will bring down the salary costs of the organizations dramatically.

Then having achieved this, motivate all the people in the organizations to apply their minds towards further cost cutting. As a result, organizations will be in position to reduce the prices of land, construction, buildings, houses, education, health care and all kinds of products. As the prices become reasonably low and realistic and within the reach of people, they will start buying the things and investing in things. The whole resurrection will be absolutely painless.

Also, devise and implement stricter controls over the governance of the organizations (including those of external auditors and justice departments) so that the scams/frauds/corruption are brought down to minimum and ultimately eliminated.

Read the “inside” stories of the corporate sector at: (Management Anecdotes) http://management-anecdotes.blogspot.com/

Don't Hero-worship, Your Hero May Be A Zero

Don't Hero-worship, Your Hero May Be A Zero

It's no use hero-worshipping any one these days. In fact, it wasn't any different even in the days gone by.

You just don't know that your hero may be a zero after all.

There have been innumerable incidents in the past and in the present when some one whom you had put on pedestal disappointed you sooner or later. And you felt terribly cheated because all along that person was your torch bearer, your leader, guru, mentor, ideal, idol and what else?

Many of these so called great men have been hoodwinking every one but you just did not have even the slightest hint. And one fine (or is it bad) day, that great person gets exposed doing some scam or fraud, committing day light robbery and looting the public.

All along you had been idolizing your hero for having built up a great empire or a great business or for holding a very high position in a high office. You looked at his success and got mesmerized. He was in the newspapers, on TV, on the net and every where you can think of, every second of every minute. The media and along with the media, you also went ga-ga over his professional and personal achievements. But after getting exposed, the same media painted him in mud and you started realizing that his professional and personal success were a big fraud and scam. By now you know that his personal wealth is all stolen money; your own money, the public money he has so smartly snatched away from you under your very nose.

I do not wish to dirty my hands by writing the names of such thousands of hero-zeros of the world but one can always do it by referring to the archives. And millions of people all over the world used to rave about these people in superlatives until these people were caught red handed doing horrible activities.

Lesson to learn: don't hero worship any one; all you may know, some other day, is that your hero is actually a big zero. After all, every one is made up of clay finally. Don't get awed by any one.

On the other hand, believe in yourself. Believe that you are a complete entity in yourself. Live life as per your own values making sure that they are correct in every way and yet, do learn from various people and circumstances, wisely. But, definitely, you don't need to copy or imitate any flashy soul (generally hyped by the media) who may in fact be a big bad wolf in disguise.

Read the “inside” stories of the corporate sector at: (Management Anecdotes) http://management-anecdotes.blogspot.com/

Massacre of Customer Service

Murder and Death of Customer Service

Did you ever experience good customer service any where, by any one, any time?

Who so ever says "yes" to this question must be hallucinating. Frankly, I always desired for it but was hopelessly searching for it till lately.

And yesterday, there was the final blow- the customer service was finally murdered and died a glorious death. For me, at least.

I was to cancel my credit card with one of the credit card companies. I decided about doing so, because the (useless) credit card company charges me credit card renewal annual fees. I now believe that in fact, rather than charging me fee for that plastic piece, they should pay me annually because I make money for them. So, I got philosophically aroused yesterday, finally. I picked up my land line phone (I still trust the land line phone since I get a dial tone there, it works without need to charge it at all unlike it's younger brother "cell" who just stops working and becomes useless if I forget to charge, it works without electricity or power, it does not send me prompts like "network is not available", the voice still sounds like that of a human being on both sides of phone- does not break or does not feel like that of robots or ET etc).

It was one most nightmarish experience, telephoning that credit card company's Help Line or BPO or Call Center or Customer Care Center (is there any other nomenclature?)- what so ever fancy names they give these days for "not providing the customer service" from the real service professionals of the company. The companies have ganged against us poor customers and have totally stopped us from directly dealing with the company's own customer service experts. However, when the company wanted to sell me it's goods and services, every Tom, Dick and Harry of the company was talking to me personally to palm off their products to me at a huge price, as always. Every one from CEO of the company to the salesman of the company directly talked to me, was so sweet, entertained me and finally fooled me in buying things from them with lots of talk of customer service also. In the excitement of buying, I forgot to ask them as to whom to contact for after sales service and they never told.

Well, let me get back to this horrendous telephonic experience with that call center. First, it took me several hours to figure out which telephone number to call for getting in touch with the customer service guys. Once I got the number, I dialled it again and again but it was engaged. It took me another half hour to finally get a ring on the other side. I thought that some one would warmly welcome me personally. But all I got was a recorded human voice, painfully professional in style and accent. I would have been happier being greeted by a live human being, howsoever plain. It totally put me off. Then, it (the recorded voice) rattled out some 8 or 9 options on what am I supposed to do as the next step- like it said, "press button 1 for this, press 2 for that and press 3 for something else and 5 for............and 9 for customer service executive". Since I forgot everything that was rattled out by the time I came to know about the use of number 9, I decided to press 9 in desperation.

In the mean time, I was dreaming that with within next two to three minutes I would be finishing my business with them and could concentrate on my own business. But that was not to be.

I heard another recorded voice saying that I should punch the credit card number using telephone keys. These days I get terribly confused with numbers. There are hundred of numbers with me: telephone numbers, credit card numbers, debit card numbers, passport number, income tax card number, bank account numbers, id card numbers, ATM card numbers, zip codes, complaints registration numbers and more numbers and yet more numbers. And all of them are miles long. Yet, with great difficulty I carefully pulled out the right credit card and punched its mile long number into the phone.

That was not sufficient. Another recorded voice asked me to punch my date of birth and zip code. I always tend to forget these two things. I did punch those two numbers too, after referring to my ready reckoner of numbers, which I always keep on my person these days.

Now having done this Himalayan task of punching endless numbers, I was looking forward to meet my dear customer service executive (of that call center, surely not of the original company that sold me the credit card so sweetly). To my shock, the next recorded voice announced that all of their customer service executives were busy with other calls (this is because they recruit lots less people than are really required to provide prompt reply over the phones and the technology is dismally inadequate and incompetent too). The recorded voice also said, "It will take 16 minutes 23 seconds before a customer service executive comes on line for you". I almost started admiring the exact prediction about the wait period. What technology!! But soon reminded myself, "Don't get drifted away from your original mission of sorting out your own problem".

During this 16 minutes and 23 seconds wait, I was compulsorily bombarded into my ear all sorts of advertisements and announcements of the company shamelessly. We make out so much about the spams on the Internet unnecessarily when here I was receiving spams after spams into my ear (same things happens to me on the 150 channels of television every five minutes when I am showered mercilessly all spam ads and same thing happens in the news papers and through the postal direct mailers etc). The recoded voices also suggested, "Why don't you send an email to us about your complaint etc". I thought that if I take the course of email to get my problem addressed, I would end up not solving my problem sine die. So I hanged on.

Finally, 16 minutes 23 seconds elapsed. That to me, looked like a few years literally. Now came the voice of my dear customer service executive, "I am so & so and what can I do for you sir?" I knew that it was her fake name and she was faking on her courtesies too. It felt as if she was reading directly from the manual that was given to her. Any way, that is none of my business.

So I explained to her that no other credit card company charges the annual renewal fees for credit cards and so, you should not do it too. I am your customer for past many years and I would appreciate if you fall in line with the current practices. I was expecting that she would reply, "Let me check up what can I do for you in this respect" and was expecting to hear, "It's OK, we won't charge you that fee here onwards. Thanks for being our customer". On the contrary, I heard her saying, "Sorry, that's our company policy. you will have to pay the renewal fees". I was not expecting this and so got a bit worked up and threatened to cancel my account with them and she happily replied, "OK, will cancel your credit card account with us. But I need your wife to talk to me since yours is only an add-on card and your wife is the first card holder". I assured her that it is perfectly OK with her to cancel the card. She has already instructed about it to me and she has her concurrence. The customer service executive won't buzz and demanded that my wife be brought on the phone.

I just could not bring my wife over the phone that time since she had gone out of home for some work and so was not present there, then. I explained the customer service executive about this and requested to cancel the account; after all it's the same thing whether my wife tells her or I tell her. Additionally, my credentials were also already checked by making me punch so many endless numbers on the phone machine. And I told her about my plight in getting through to her after crossing few thousand hurdles over the phone. She showed no pity on me. She was not willing to listen to me any more and in absolute finality declared , "If you have to cancel this account, ask your wife to speak with us."

Now, I shudder at the thought of my wife going through the same appalling experience that I had just gone through.

That day I mourned the demise of customer service.

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