Crying Paragraph From A Novel Called ‘Services’

 

“Apne desh ka kuch nahi ho sakta!” (Nothing would happen to our country). The most popular, most common and proudly pronounced catch up line among almost every street corner debates. Whether they are fresh collegians, newly qualified graduates, highly skilled and established professionals or whitely attired politicians, dissatisfaction from the country comes out loud from every mouth. We certainly need to come over this lousy thought. We certainly need to look out of the window now. We need to know the facts by comparing.

I had this intense thought to address this issue while sitting in an underground train I just initiated at the same time. “I have lived in London for three years. Initially I was a foreigner for this country but now I am a lot into the things. I have earned experiences and learned the jobs. I have used from basic to leisure services in this country. I have enjoyed and I have endured. So this is what I need to address about. SERVICES! I have got mixed experiences with the service sector in United Kingdom.”

Starting with the first and essential basic service, Transport. Train service of London, London Underground as it is better known locally, is famous in all over the world. They have got these iconic red double deckers, splendid black cabs and trams as well running in all over the city. The fares of underground and buses have risen nearly 25% in only two years. But the service is getting worse every other day. Appearance is the only thing which differs from Ahmedabad’s AMTS or Mumbai’s well known BEST or Local trains. The commuters might look decent and clean in their cashmere overcoats and jackets in comparison of our ordinarily clad, smelly commuters. The allover external impression is that it is an organized transport system. Yes, we cannot deny the crystal infrastructure of the transport system. But trains remain in tunnels for minutes, buses get terminated anywhere on your way. Single cab journey can buy a second hand scooter in India which can live your purpose of commuting. Weekend refurbishments, planned engineering works, reduced services, severe delays, track replacement, signal failures, disruptions, faulty trains, unavailability of staff and replacement services are the common news at every single underground station chart. And still what you pay is 20% of your income to the dedicated underground. The rail boss stays an inch higher from the ground than everything else, “Don’t expect a seat while short journeys (30 minutes)”, he suggests. “Get off the train if you fill it is crowded”. These are the advisable answers from the responsible and authorized person of London Transport! Congestion charges soar like never before. The motorists have to pay daily congestion charge (£8 per day) if they enter in the designated area called congestion zone of the Central London. So you don’t drive and you pay for public transport and which is bone-breaking for a normal commuter. It is always frustrating for any routine commuter to be late at work or anywhere just on account of Trains and Buses. God bless Briton’s “Read anything! Read anywhere!” habit!

Let’s see what Mobile & Internet providers do. You will find the best offers, the best gadgets and many goodies when you start your services with mobile or internet. You would even get virtually free starter packs. Everything is contracted so once your contract terms are overshadowed by the wonderful offers and freebies, you would start to realize slowly that what you are into! You will surely end up paying more than you would have ever expected. The promises of relentless services would look blurred. A small or serious problem in service may make you suffer for life. To assist you with your problem, there are hundreds of outlets or so called customer service centers of the provider on streets and malls but in most cases you would get the answer, “you will have to talk with customer service advisor on phone”. A physical person cannot resolve anything in front of you, and security reasons are the explanations. More worse happens when you call to customer services. They now describe themselves as information providers only. They can empathize, they can understand your problems, they can listen to your shouting and swearing but at the end, they say, “There is nothing I really can do about it!” You would never be able to speak to the relevant person who can resolve something in real time. Everything works on automated systems, and you would be queuing up to get answered or responded. Problems do occur, technology has got flaws and it is human to accept the problems and to wait for them to get resolved. But you would be left in dark that what is going on, you will just have to wait. Most of the people get fooled with technical terms and they think there is something really serious happening, as serious as ‘launching a space shuttle’. Sales people do anything to sell a ‘bell’ to anyone and rest becomes an ordeal for the customer. We have to be extra careful to understand the services we are going hire.

However, I am back in Ahmedabad for good and I have had some interesting occurrences being a social entity, I will have my hands and mouthful for very long to keep bringing the issues in light.