Customer Satisfaction!!!

   A fine day to begin with and to add to it, I was feeling pleased as a punch with myself as I was leaving office a whole half a day earlier than i was supposed to be leaving. The feeling of smug self satisfaction was short lived when  I pulled my two wheeler out of the parking lot. The rear Tyre was flat and lifeless and not a single shop in sight to get it repaired. Let me tell you changing the wheel in a car is a piece of cake when compared to the intricacies in removing the wheel of a bike. At a loss for words I begin dragging the vehicle in the sweltering heat and enquiring where a puncture shop could be.
   Suddenly a wizened small old guy came and asked me to follow him. Well I was of two minds whether to follow him or start a search of my own but decided to follow him after all it is better to follow someone who is sure of the direction than search on a random luck favoring basis. The guy asked me to park my chariot under a bridge and follow him and I was like "old man its hot and I don't have time for games". Still with a flat Tyre I did not have many options. So I humored him. Turned out that the guy was a puncture specialist and wanted me to see him get his tools etc etc. Then the guy was back at my bike's side and before I could say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious he had the Tyre out and was rolling it across the street and had the puncture fixed. The guy was thoroughly a professional by the way he worked. He knew exactly what to do. I know it sounds crazy because locating the puncture and patching it up is not exactly mathematical calculus but there was something about his mannerism that made me kind of sit up and give him a lot of attention. He was a past-master at his work that the entire exercise of removing the tube and re-inserting it into the Tyre hardly exerted him.
   I had to respect the guy for the way he worked. He was completely concentrating on the work and keeping side talk minimal, but once he finished the job he started yapping away as if there was no tomorrow asking about where I worked and advertising his shop. This is probably the mark of a true professional. the movie "The Last Samurai" flashed in my mind where Tom Cruise described the ways of a samurai as a set of people who dedicated themselves to their chosen discipline from sun-up to sun-down. That is the sort of impression the little old man had on me. Truth be told the guy demanded me thrice as much as what other people who repair punctures charged and what was even more surprising was I had no regret in coughing up the money.
   I know it seems to far-fetched to write a blog about an old guy who repairs punctured Tyres and even more foolish to write one where I end up paying a whole load of money for something that doesn't quite cost a lot. Still the old man left an impression. On something as mundane as repairing a punctured Tyre the guy displayed a lot of dexterity and single-minded focus. Of course how he uses the money I gave him under the business transaction is questionable and I have this feeling that the money is going to end up in a liquor shop. He had a lesson to teach on how to go about your work which anyone can appreciate. If one can throw a little bit of the effort and bring to force, the experience then it seems like anything is possible without taking too much tension and too much pain. That I suppose is the secret of living a balanced life. We should rule our work and not let the work start dictating terms. A little discipline and sincerity and that will empower you to ask whatever you demand and leave your customers with a smile. That is the power of customer satisfaction. You don't need to be a talkative marketing guy but just a true professional with a great work ethic and a dedication to your work and easy to end up with top pay for even the simplest of work.

The March of Time!!!

   An interesting topic is to analyse the movement of time. Scientifically "what is time" is a question that is beyond my limited abilities to explain but what I do know to explain is the other aspect of time that is more easily understandable by lay people like me.

   Humans tend to live for around 70 years on an average, sometimes more than 100. The best years are always yet to come for the homo sapiens and that makes our lives that much more interesting to study. Initial years are spent in unknowing innocence and mischief without attaching any importance to the time flowing by beyond the approaching festivals or the annual birthday and some sweaty moments with respect to exams and results. The initial years are the most carefree moments that we ever live. Once you get out of school starts the journey from innocent child to the gray areas of becoming an adult. This is also the point where "Time" instead of moving at normal speed seems to start moving at the speed of light.
   From a personal experience I had a great time during my school days, however life was that much better after school. Unfortunately this also turned out to be the time when things began to speed up. People often say that when you are having a good time, hours turn into seconds and when you are in deep sh*@ seconds can stretch. The crazy thing is it turns out to be right for the most part. When you are stuck in a place that you do not like but have to stay there for a certain duration of time then not even the power of the lord almighty can make the time go fast. In retrospect one might agree that the time moved very fast but there in the eye of the storm of that situation, the general emotions range from frustration to sheer boredom. Imagine yourself alone in a place far from home and not even the company of your friends to pass the time. This is the time when you get the actual feeling of being a prisoner. The only thought glaring at the back of your head is GIVE ME FREEDOM!!! At the same time you see your entire life flashing by in the moments of intense nostalgia and you realize with a start that the years have passed by so fast. It feels like only yesterday when you were being chased by your mom with this crazy instrument that is supposed to be used for making chappathis and the next instant your grown up and fending for yourself away from home.
   It sure is a weird feeling thinking that I am an adult and am no longer tied to my home. That whole adult and grown up idea is not exactly fitting into my juvenile brain which keeps my life full of video games and cartoons. So in such a situation the concept of the rapid march of time is not exactly appreciated. The fact of the matter is I would love for time to slow down and let me savor the good times and when things are not so great time should ideally speed up so I can look back and laugh it off. If only this sort of manipulation could be done, then I would just breeze through the tough times and extend the nice ones.
  All said and done the movement of time is something that  is a figment of imagination dreamed out by an idle mind to explain the flow of emotions and thoughts that are an every day occurrence. However this does not mean the passage of time does not actually happen. We live and love only through our minds and hearts and if there is a concept that has been cooked up by our mind or felt by our heart then there is some truth to it. The march of time is relentless and the speeding of time and its slowing is a topic of discussion during times of extreme idleness. So the corollary would be that reading this blog must also be done ideally when there is a lot of free time. Unfortunately by this time the blog would have been read and completed and I can only apologize for the few minutes of time that I have taken up from your life.