Lapses of lingy…

I attended a ‘literary garage sale’ at the Prithvi Café, this weekend. T’was organised by my friend Altaf who seems to live a rather charmed life, when it comes to his career, extra-curricular activities and social circle.

He has an impassioned group of friends who express their creativity through a club called Writers Game. These guys have regular jobs, but are artists, photographers, poets and writers at heart. Their little display at Prithvi included messages (poetry and prose) in a bottle, photograph series of feet (by Altaf), art work, et al.

One chap (described to me by someone, as ‘intense’) stood tall on a chair and recited poetry on risqué subjects such as underwear, sex etc. I missed his recital.

Post the exhibit, we watched a play and I eventually landed up at the after-play crew party. The camaraderie of the crew reminded me of my theatre days in Goa with a local theatre outfit called Mustard Seeds. It was the goof-ups during the play that made us laugh the most. I once exited the stage and almost forgot to get back on. My co-actors borderline-panicked, of course, without letting the audience realise it. I became the butt of many jokes after this.

However, my performance as a 70-year old farmer woman who was trying to protect her land from the forces of capitalism in A Harvest Of Gold, was well received and I got a mention in the local newspaper.

The script had one of the actors describe me as ‘old woman with pendulous breasts’. My co-actor’s father popped into the green room to congratulate me. A witty fellow , he tends to be intoxicated most of the time, and asked me,” So, you are the old lady with pendulous breasts!”

I blushed a rich crimson.

On a different note, someone asked me yesterday: Are you wearing lenses or are those eyes really your own? I blushed a rich crimson once again. How’s that for an original pick-up line?   

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I picked up a Dell laptop in April, and had a pretty awful experience with the sales staff, while making the purchase. Here’s the e-mail I wrote to the India manager in Bangalore.

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I am writing to you from Mumbai where I work as an assistant editor with Web18, the Internet division of media company Network18. 

I had an absolutely horrendous experience this week while trying to purchase a Dell Inspiron laptop at your kiosk at the electronics chain Chroma in Malad, Mumbai. The service I received was beyond substandard, totally unprofessional and raises many troubling questions about Dell India’s direct sales channel and how they treat their potential customers.

Monday, April 14, 2008 is when I purchased the computer at the Dell kiosk in Malad. I was assisted by Asif, one of the sales representatives who worked there that day. I opted to paying by credit card and was asked to give the details over the phone by the person in Bangalore, Avinash Kaparthy. When the process was over, I asked Avinash to confirm whether the transaction has been completed and my card charged. This, I explained to Avinash, was because I lived in Khar, an hour away from Malad by road and that I did not have the time to travel all the way back later, in case there were any problems. I also reiterated this to Asif several times. The decibel levels of the music playing in the store were very high and from what I understood, Avinash and Asif confirmed that there was no problem with the transaction and that it had gone through. I was not asked to wait and was told that I would receive an e-mail confirming the same, the next day.

In fact, Asif mentioned that I would get ‘another quote’ by e-mail the next day. After a while I understood that what he meant by this term was an e-mail confirmation/receipt of the transaction!

Assured by both Avinash and Asif, that I had done my bit in making sure the transaction was through, I left. I then got a call from Asif after about an hour saying that the credit card could not accommodate the amount of Rs 39,699. I asked if he accepted debit cards. He said no and said I would need to come back. I then asked if I would be able to split the total payment by paying part cash and part card, to which he responded in the affirmative.

This was exactly the situation I had told them I was trying to avoid. I had already reached half-way back home by the time I received the call from Asif, a fact he was privy to. I now needed to find transportation that would agree to take me back all the way to Malad, as well as locate an ATM in an area I was not familiar with. All this during peak rush hour! Finally, I was forced to walk over a kilometer and a half, since the rickshaws plying the roads at that time would not go all the way back to where the store was located. I also had to withdraw cash from the ATM of a different bank since my bank did not have an ATM in the area, a process which cost me additional time and money, not to mention extreme frustration.

When I finally reached the store just before closing time, both Avinash and Asif showed no empathy for the trouble I had to go through in getting back to the store, to help fix the problems that they had caused in their rush to make a sale. Asif blamed the Bangalore team and Avinash kept repeating that my credit card could not accommodate the amount. He also says he tried to call me but could not get though while Asif had done so successfully at the exact same time!

The biggest question I had then and still have now, and the sole reason why this turned out to be such a horrid experience for me as a consumer is: why was my credit card not charged instantly? Especially, since I was emphatic about the fact that I lived far from the store and that it would be problematic at best for me to come back in case any problems arose.

It didn’t help that there was no empathy at all from either Avinash or Asif. All I got was a stuck record robot in Asif, saying “sorry m’aam” about a million times in between his putting the blame on the Bangalore office, instead of placating me for his mistakes. A cup of tea? A freebie, such as maybe throwing in a free accessory?? I could only wish. Nothing but excuses and deflecting the blame is all I got. I felt like I was talking to a wall.

I noticed during my shopping experience that a Bittorrent Client was being used to download the movie Krazzy 4, on one of the Dell computer screens. I have attached a photograph of the same. As you know, this is a complete violation of copyright!

My question: does Dell train its employees to problem solve or just stand there reciting programmed scripts, like the drones they were that day?? Dell’s total lack of professionalism, problem solving, integrity and lack of empathy for its customers is extremely disturbing. Your potential customers are unaware of these problems in your company, and I will do whatever I have to do to make them aware of it as I would not want anyone to go through what I went through when it comes to buying a laptop.

At the same time, I would like to give Dell a chance to explain to me how it plans to make changes in its systems, policies and most importantly, its employees and the training that they are given so that Dell’s future potential customers do not have to go through the nightmare I had to endure.

I look forward to hearing from you at the earliest so that you may tell me what Dell plans to do about these issues I encountered as a Dell customer.

warm regards,

Merril Diniz

Assistant Editor
Web18, Mumbai

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The response: After a couple of days the manager e-mailed me this really ‘feel-good’ sorta message.

When I did receive the laptop, I discovered that it was the wrong colour. Besides, they did not even have the good sense to make sure the engineer came on time to set up the machine. It was Indian Standard Time. I was furious and demanded to be compensated in some way (something they ought to have suggested). The manager verbally agreed over the phone and said he would get back to me. No follow-up. So, I texted him. Over the next one week the staff in the department kept passing the buck, saying this one would revert to me, and so and so forth. Then I gave up.

DELL INDIA IS MANAGED BY A BUNCH OF CLOWNS! PERIOD.

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This morning during my power walk, I shed a few tears for some my girlfriends. Coldplay’s melancholic The Scientist resonated in my ears, not helping matters at all.

They are such great girls; smart, passionate, kind, ambitious, people with a mind and sensibility of their own.

But the constant badgering about the M word (you know what it is) by mom and dads, is beginning to take its toll on their self-esteem and peace of mind. When the moms and dads book their journeys to Mumbai, their fortress of happiness and self-worth is gradually eroded, and the crevices get quickly filled up with intense feelings of hate.

I once told a friend, there are those who love you unconditionally. And then there are those whose love, comes with a disclaimer.

I just want to say: Girlfriends, you are loved and admired, deeply.
 
 

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Last week I met three dynamic people who go by pretty unusual designations. The first chap is a ‘Social Media Catalyst’. He’s on every online network in existence and uses these platforms for business.

Then I met another chap who conducts meditation classes. I attended one of them, which a friend of mine has been raving about rather vociferously. He dimmed the lights, played some great music (including Kyrie in a capella) and got us to breath, decently. It was super relaxing, and at the end of the session some people ‘shared’, and said things like ‘the energy was powerful’. Twas’ a little reminiscent of some evangelical affair. Nevertheless, the deep breathing helped. This chap calls himself a ‘Transformation Seminar Leader’.

The last person with an interesting designation was really dynamic and inspiring. He grew up in a village, worked his way up from scratch and one fine day he’s the CEO of an IT consultancy. Now, he is pseudo retired and calls himself a Gardener. He also calls himself a feminist (no, he’s not gay). Wow! We need more guys like him.

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I spoke to this girl from Generation Y, who came across as shockingly unambitious. She’s all of 23, and three jobs down.

Why did she quit her previous jobs? “I was fed up,” she says. Why was she fed up? The first job she took up cause the money was good. The second one, cause it was closer to her career aspiration. But the hours were long. She left and took up job number three because she was ‘desperate’. Does she love job number three? Nopes, she detests it with a vengeance. Strangely, I did not feel sad for her. I realised that this is because she was not driven enough to get what she wanted. No fire in the belly, that sort of thing.  Sigh!

Overheard one racy conversation whilst exiting the office loo. One chit of a girl said to another chit of a girl with oodles of enthusiasm: I have found this fantastic make-out place!

Then they disappeared into the loo, sans me catching the name of this ‘hot’ spot.

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So, last week I knocked off the ’single’ relationship status from my profile on the addictive social networking site. Pretty soon cousins and friends (and a few enemies) from around the world popped up on various virtual interfaces to find out ‘who is he?’.

One particular individual whom I had stopped talking to and in fact speak to rather sparingly or never, also inquired with the overzealousness of a true romantic (the ‘awwww’ literally resonates in my ears).

Sorry to burst the romantics’ bubble, but off-line it is status quo. This was a strategic move to discourage random males from wanting to making ‘frandsip’ with moi. That is the whole unromantic truth.

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