Try to delight that customer

“Railway authorities fined 1000 rupees each for those people traveled with no ticket in Ranchi”, news today. I am sure dozens of black cat commandos with AK 47s would have guarded them while they were doing this. I had heard that people in some parts of India while traveling will deliberately forget to buy tickets, but will never forget to carry their deadly weapons with them even by chance. Good news is that Railways will get more revenue and if this trend continues one can expect better toilets in trains, if not in all coaches at least in S1 and S2 !

It is nice to see that people are able to perform their duties, fearlessly.

In chapter 3 of Bhagavad Gita, “Karma Yoga” it clearly explains how it is the duty of each and every member of society to carry out their functions and responsibilities according to the rules and regulations of the society, fearlessly. At one place it mentions that “Performing one’s natural prescribed duty tinged with faults is far better than performing another’s prescribed duty perfectly; even death in performing one’s natural prescribed duty is better; for performing prescribed duties of others is fraught with danger”.  It is better that some of our ministers are reminded of these facts, when they try to do things like conducting a raid late in the night in a suspected drug peddling and sex trade (more frequently used terms these days compared to terms like “Karma Yoga” ) locality.

It is not easy to step into somebody’s shoes. My friend, we were 14 yrs old that time, got a new bicycle from his dad, that too Hercules brand. That machine was equivalent to 150 cc, oil cooled, disk barked, Yamaha R15 motor bike these days.  After a few weeks of use, he thought its time to get it overhauled, apply some grease to the moving parts. He decided to do it himself.  He made exactly 3 trips to the cycle mechanic that day after that. Morning first trip, to carry the bare frame of the cycle. Second trip in the morning carrying those two wheels and a gunny bag full of bolts and nuts and some small parts that may go to unknown places on the cycle. Third trip in the evening to collect the cycle in its true shape after paying 30 rupees ! My friend walked really fast in the forward direction in the shoes of the mechanic, took some rest, but could not return at all !

It is a relief seeing the Supreme Court directive that one cannot transfer IAS & IPS officers for 2 years at least. These bureaucrats can now discharge their duties faithfully and continuously. The term continuously brought my friend to my memory. He would be in a suggesting mood, perpetually. That hampers considerably his desire to perform his duties in a continuous manner. We had a new CEO in the company, hired from outside, not home grown. My “suggestive” friend wanted to impress upon him. He sent CEO a report detailing, how our company should be customer centric, how we need to hunt for new customers, how to mine or milk existing ones, how to improve quality in our products and services, how to improve margins etc etc, fairly  lengthy report. The CEO was smart (he has to be, otherwise he would not have been picked up for the job ). He easily understood that our friend was busy skimming through those management books for at least 3 weeks to prepare this fundu report and not focusing on what he was actually supposed to do. CEO just replied “You do your job. I will do mine”!

I read in news paper yesterday that in Tumkur, nearby town to Bangalore, cops were tied up and beaten by villagers while the criminal escaped. To nab the wanted criminal, the cops were not in uniform for obvious reasons. Villagers mistook that some miscreants were trying to harm their fellow man. I do understand the disguise part. But I fail to understand why these cops did not carry small revolvers hiding under their belts. They could have at least fired 2 rounds into the open sky when they were about to be attacked due to mistaken identity. May be they had the guns but it did not fire when it needed most! So performing duty is important, having necessary and reliable resources is equally important.

At times people are forced to do some duties which they are not familiar with. My 10^th Standard class teacher, Chandrasekaharan was a victim of this. He used to teach us English and was patient enough to correct the spelling and grammar mistakes while we attempted to write in English. My salutations to you beloved Chandra sir, wherever you are. Luckily we never used to speak in English, rather that was not imposed on to us, else his task would have been much tougher. Our  sports event of the year came by and our born rude headmaster assigned the task of conducting this meet to my poor non athletic class teacher. He was struggling to find out the distance covered by one of the long jumpers. In the other side of the ground, that tall hefty student, whose only focus was to do some sports activity and no academics, was sitting in the 9^th standard for the third time, took the javelin in his hands.  He threw the javelin with all his force to cover maximum distance. It did, but in the wrong direction and fell in a totally wrong place. Like a high precision drone missile it pierced through the left ear of Chandrashekharan. One can imagine the trauma and pain he went through. Hospitalized for a week. Only plus point of the whole episode was the otherwise soft spoken teacher became loud enough to people at back bench also, as he became partially deaf.

There would be challenges, there would be pain, and there would happiness when you discharge your duties. “One cannot remain without engaging in any activity at any time even for a moment”, says in Karma Yoga. So we can’t get away with that. Another important thing to remember is for any activity, there will be at least one customer. When you develop and deliver an IT system, the end client is there. When you write an HR policy, employees are there. When you right a piece of code, the poor tester is there. When you meditate, your mind is there. When you go for a walk, your body is there. When you do nothing, no, no, it is just not possible. You will be in to some activity or other. And the cutomer(s) will always be there.

Try to delight that customer.