Friday, February 13, 2009

Life on the other side of the counter

Have you ever been in a long queue? Have line moved very slowly? Sometimes there is this odd lunch time. Sometimes there are these odd breaks, wherein the guy who gives the form or tickets goes on a stroll, just for a minute or two. The whole crowd and the people in the line go berserk. How many of you work in a demanding job?

I mean really demanding like a call center, wherein you are just given 3 breaks. One half an hour break and 2 fifteen minutes. I have worked in a call center in the initial part of my career and I know running behind targets for the day, we would never even think of taking all the breaks. It was so hectic. So most of the days, I made sure that I took breaks, all of them. If I don't meet the targets by a mere number, it was okay, as the sky was not going to fall.

In railway ticket counters, people who give tickets, do you know how many times they can get out of their chairs. How many breaks they get? When they take a break, the crowd starts going berserk, as if the guy who gives the forms or tickets are some kind of a robot. Have we ever considered it as a job? Every job has its advantages and disadvantages. If we take on this job may be we can perform for a while, we will not feel the pinch. Then after some days, being at constant pressure, of distributing tickets, we would eventually fade and get bored.

I really salute the spirit of these guys. They being under such constant turmoil, live the day to fight another. After all they are also humans. They also get bored, they also have the right to take breaks. The guy standing in the line, things only about his welfare of getting the tickets or forms and get the hell out of there. He is not concerned about the guy on the other side of the counter.

There was this receptionist, I was on the line waiting for a room in the hotel. The guy before me in the line was so unhappy with the service that he was yelling at her. So badly that, she could have started crying. Somehow, she made sure that his unhappiness was met with some action from her side. The next thing i know, she had a bright smile on her face and greeted me as if nothing at all had happened. I asked her after room was allocated. How do u handle such mood swings, don't you get irritated. She replied, she had got used to such things.

I was surprised by her answer, not that I did not expect it. I just marveled at the nature of the job. Whatever be your feelings, but you got to sell the best of your smile for your job. Many may argue, that is it not the same at every job. I do agree to some extent, in our job sometimes we have to be smiling, even though our personal tragedies galore upon us. But not to this extent that, our smiles should keep the customers pleasant. And I thought my job was tough.



Air-hostess, cabin crew, some of them are a little rude, especially when you travel by international flights or connecting flights. But taking into consideration the nature of their job. How often you are greeted by a pleasant smile when you enter the airlines, whatever it might be. They have to smile, come what may. They have to be dressed in their cool uniform, look good, take care of the customers. Not that all the customers are very happy natured and cool.

I traveled on a flight to Trivandrum on some airways. Some of the guys were playing around with the digicam, snapping very randomly. The time for food had come. The air hostess was giving away take away food. This incidence coincided with the random snaps of those guys. The air hostess lost her temperament, and I would say every one at that moment would have lost. She felt as if they have taken a snap of her back. Quiet embarrassing scenario. It turned ugly when she snapped the camera from the hands of one of those guys and asked them to delete the snaps. As the guy was not at fault, he went to flight supervisor and talked to him in his broken English.

Somehow the air hostess girl asked sorry to the guy. They have to give way, even though they are not at fault. Nobody thinks they are human beings. God knows how many such harassments air hostesses have to face on a daily basis. They just feel as if they are just beautiful dolls who work for them. Their smiles just say a thousand stories of which we can understand only one. Ofcourse there are exceptions in all jobs. There are people who do not take their jobs sincerely. But put all in all, next time you look at a smile of these people first consider them human beings, then show respect not for their job, but for their humanness. Hats off, I take a bow.

( Please note that, all the snaps in this article are taken from Google search)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

To be honest, I do get irritate sometimes if I miss a train by a second just because the ticket counter guy delayed few minutes or if some guy invariably try to call me daily to sell a credit card or to take personal loans. After reading your post, I think I should be little more patient.

Next time when I come across such instances, your post will remind me! Nice write-up :)

Lan said...

hey hi; yes, we don't even bother to even think about these people. They are just people who irritate us in the wrong time.....
Thanks for giving ur time to read....you too have a cool blog!!

Kaleidoscope said...

hey... cool blog! very different things u think of writing here :)

Lan said...

hey thanks!! i liked urs too!! :)

whocares said...

Customer service..phew!

Lan said...

customer service is indeed a demanding job; very difficult to meet your targets and it seems like hell; if things are not going your way~~ :)

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